
THE JOURNEY OF THE FRANGI. 

A 

CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



J. ROSS BROWNE, 




iMRPER <fe BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

329 & 331 PEARL STREET, 
FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

l87 I. 



By J. ROSS BROWNE. 



AN AMERICAN FAMILY IN GERMANY. Illustrated by the 
Author. 12rno, Cloth, 82 00. 

THE LAND OF THOR. Illustrated by the Author. 12mo, 
Cloth. 82 00. 

CRUSOE'S ISLAND : A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander 
Selkirk. With Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe. 
Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth. 81 75. 

YUSEF : or. The Journey of the Frangi. A Crusade in the East. 
With Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth. $1 75. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
By transfer 

J UN 12 1915 ': 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and flfty-tbree, by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of 
the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 



3 

TO THE 

HON. ROBERT J. WALKER, 



AS A TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AS A STATESMAN- 
ESTEEM FOR HIS VIRTUES IN PRIVATE LIFE, AND GRA'I * 
ITUDE FOR HIS MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS 
TO THE AUTHOR, 

THIS VOLUME 



PREFACE. 



An essayist in the Reflector tells us that " Colum- 
bus can not be more famous than a man who describes 
the Temple of Jerusalem." Now, although I have a 
great desire to be as famous as Columbus, it is due to 
the reader to state at the outset that he will find very 
little about temples in this volume. The only ground 
upon which I can aspire to such a distinction is, in 
having avoided, as far as practicable, every thing that 
has given fame to those who have preceded me. If 
there be any important fact, therefore, in scriptural or 
classical history, that the reader is disappointed in not 
finding in these pages, I beg that he will adopt the 
suggestion of my friend and fellow-traveler, Dr. Men- 
doza, and " remain tranquil for the present." There is 
no telling what the future may bring forth, or to what 
extremes of research a man may be driven by the 
force of circumstances. 

Part of this narrative was originally written in the 
form of letters to the 64 National Intelligencer," chiefly 
for the amusement of my friends in "Washington. . The. 
style was rather more familiar than the usual contri- 
butions to that journal, and certainly more so than I 
would have chosen to adopt, had I thought seriously at 



IV 



PREFACE. 



the time of publishing the letters in book form. That 
I considered it probable I might make use of the ma- 
terial at some future period, I frankly admit ; but in 
looking over my notes and the mass of sketches thus 
brought together, the task of re-writing, and making 
any thing of them in the way of a serious work on 
Palestine, seemed too formidable to be undertaken by 
one who has scarcely yet commenced his travels. 

Such as the sketches are, I have chosen to put them 
together in the form of a connected narrative ; and 
they are now presented to the public, with such illus- 
trations from my own portfolio, drawn on* wood by 
competent artists, as I thought would give them any 
additional value. 

It will be seen that I have not felt it to be my duty 
to make a desponding pilgrimage through the Holy 
Land ; for upon a careful perusal of the Scriptures, I 
can find nothing said against a cheerful frame of mind 
If there be any person, however, who may think that 
a traveler has no right to be lively in that part of the 
world, I beg that he will suspend his judgment till I 
visit Jerusalem again ; in which event he may depend 
upon it I shall use every exertion to be depressed in 
spirits, and produce something uncommonly heavy 
and substantial. 

In regard to the apparent egotism of writing so 
much about one's self, I can not do better than quote 
the words of Thomas de Q,uincey : " It is not offered as 
deriving any part of what interest it may have from 
myself as the person concerned in it. If the partic- 
ular experience selected is really interesting, in virtue 
of its own circumstances, then it matters not to whom 
it happened. Let him [the reader] read the sketch as 



PREFACE. 



belonging to one who wishes to be profoundly anony- 
mous." In this view, should there be any thing that 
strikes the reader as very good in the volume, he can 
not do better than to look at the title-page, and give 
credit accordingly ; but where it appears to him that 
there is any thing very bad in it, he will greatly oblige 
me by regarding it as the production of the gentleman 
who figures in the conversations with Yusef. 

Written without any other purpose than that of de- 
scribing faithfully what fell under my own observation, 
it may be that the design is not sufficiently apparent ; 
yet if, on the whole, from the general tenor, a more 
liberal feeling should be encouraged respecting th£ 
customs and prejudices of the uncivilized world, and 
a clearer sense of our own weaknesses, the book will 
not have been written in vain. There may be a moral 
also in the circumstances under which the journey was 
performed. 

Ten years ago, after having rambled all over the 
United States — six hundred miles of the distance on 
foot, and sixteen hundred in a flat-boat — I set out 
from Washington with fifteen dollars, to make a tour 
of the East. I got as far east as NeAV York, where 
the last dollar and the prospect of reaching Jerusalem 
came to a conclusion at the same time. Sooner than 
return home, after having made so good a beginning, 
I shipped before the mast in a whaler, and did some 
service, during a voyage to the Indian Ocean, in the 
way of scrubbing decks and catching whales. A 
mutiny occurred at the island of Zanzibar, where I 
sold myself out of the vessel for thirty dollars and a 
chest of old clothes ; and spent three months very 
pleasantly at the consular residence, in the vicinity of 



vi 



PREFACE. 



his Highness the Imaum of Muscat, On my return 
to Washington, I labored hard for four ye^rs on Bank 
statistics and Treasury reports, by which time, in order 
to take the new administration by the fore-lock. I de- 
termined to start for the East again. The only chance 
I had of getting there was, to accept of an appointment 
as third lieutenant in the Revenue service, and go to 
California, and thence to Oregon, where I was to re- 
port for duty. On the voyage to Rio, a difficulty 
occurred between the captain and the passengers of 
the vessel, and we were detained there nearly a month. 
I took part with the rebels, because I believed them to 
Be right. The captain was deposed by the American 
consul, and the command of the vessel was offered to 
me ; but having taken an active part against the late 
captain, I could not with propriety accept the offer. A 
whaling captain, who had lost his vessel near Buenos 
Ayres, was placed in the command, and we proceeded 
on our voyage round Cape Horn. After a long and 
dreary passage we made the island of Juan Fernandez. 
In company with ten of the passengers, I left the ship 
seventy miles out at sea, and went ashore in a small 
boat, for the purpose of gathering up some tidings 
in regard to my old friend Robinson Crusoe. What 
befell us on that memorable expedition is fully set 
forth in a narrative recently published in " Harper's 
Magazine.' 5 Subsequently we spent some time in Lima, 
" the City of the Kings." It was my fortune to arrive 
penniless in California, and to find, by way of consola- 
tion, that a reduction had been made by Congress in 
the number of revenue vessels, and that my services 
in that branch of public business were no longer re- 
^ quired. While thinking seriously of taking in washing 



PREFACE. 



vi) 



at six dollars a dozen, or devoting the remainder of my 
days to mule-driving as a profession, I was unexpect- 
edly elevated to the position of post-office agent ; and 
went about the country for the purpose of making post- 
masters. I only made one — the post-master of San 
Tose. After that, the Convention called by General 
Riley met at Monterey, and I was appointed to report 
the debates on the formation of the State Constitution. 
For this I received a sum that enabled me to return to 
Washington, and start for the East again. There was 
luck in the third attempt, for, as may be seen, I got 
there at last, having thus visited the four continents, 
and traveled by sea and land a distance of a hundred 
thousand miles, or more than four times round the 
world, on the scanty earnings of my own head and hands. 

If there be any moral in the book, therefore, it is 
this : that there is no great difficulty in traveling all 
over the world, when one sets about it with a deter- 
mination to do it, and keeps trying till he succeeds ; 
that there is no position in life disreputable or degrad- 
ing while self-respect remains ; and nothing impossible 
that has ever been done by man. Let him who thirsts 
for knowledge go out upon the broad face of the earth, 
and he will find that it is not out of books alone that 
he can get it ; let him make use of the eyes that G-od 
has given him, and he will see more in the world's 
unwritten revelations than the mind of man hath con* 
ceived . 

" Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win 
By fearing to attempt." 

J. R. B. 

Washington, D. C, February, 1853. 



CONTENTS. 



A GrIRA THROUGH SICILY. 

PAGl 

CHAPTER I. — Palermo 13 

CHAPTER II. — Catacombs of Palermo = 20 

CHAPTER III.— Journey to Catania 28 

CHAPTER IV. — Ascent of Mount Etna 35 

CHAPTER V.— The Crater 41 

CHAPTER VI. — A Quarrel with the Ancients 53 

CHAPTER VII.— On the Road to Syracuse 58 

CHAPTER VIII.— Syracuse 66 

CHAPTER IX.— Taormina 73 

A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 

CHAPTER X.— The Breach 80 

CHAPTER XL— Athens 85 

CHAPTER XII.— Syra 101 

CHAPTER XIIL— Smyrna 107 

CHAPTER XIV.— Constantinople 114 

CHAPTER XV.— A Visit to the Bazaars 129 

CHAPTER XVL— Turkish Beauties 141 

CHAPTER XVII.— Manners and Customs 149 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Babel Revived 164 

CHAPTER XIX.— The English Tourist 167 

CHAPTER XX.— The Syrian Dragoman 174 

CHAPTER XXL— My Horse Saladin 182 

CHAPTER XXII.— The Arab Story Teller 192 

CHAPTER XXIIL— The Cedars of Lebanon 197 

A* 



x CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XXIV— Baalbek 206 

CHAPTER XXV. — Yusef Dances the Raas 218 

CHAPTER XXVI. — A Social Chat with Yusef 227 

CHAPTER XXVII.— The Greek Bishop 232 

CHAPTER XXVIII.— The Arab Muleteer 240 

CHAPTER XXIX.— From Baalbek to Damascus 244 

CHAPTER XXX.— Damascus 254 

CHAPTER XXXI.— Baths of Damascus 26c 

CHAPTER XXXII.— The American Missionaries 272 

CHAPTER XXXIII.— The Battle of the Muleteers 276 

CHAPTER XXXIV.— Grand Secret of Human Happiness.. 285 

CHAPTER XXXV.— The Mill of Malaha 296 

CHAPTER XXXVI.— The Rebel Sheik 306 

CHAPTER XXXVII.— The Syrian Horses 310 

CHAPTER XXXVIII.— The Sea of Galilee 319 

CHAPTER XXXIX— Journey to Nazareth 326 

CHAPTER XL— Nazareth 330 

CHAPTER XLI— A Gazelle Hunt.. 335 

CHAPTER XLII— Djenin 343 

CHAPTER XLIII. — Adventure with the Samaritans 348 

CHAPTER XLIV— Nablous 352 

CHAPTER XL V.— A Striking- Scene 354 

CHAPTER XL VI— Jerusalem 359 

CHAPTER XL VII— Arab Guard to the Dead Sea 366 

CHAPTER XL VIII— The Dead Sea and the Jordan 371 

CHAPTER XLIX— Thrilling Alarm in Jericho 378 

CHAPTER L. — Christmas Night in Bethlehem 387 

CHAPTER LI— Crossing the Rivers 391 

CHAPTER LII— The Desolate City 394 

CHAPTER LIII. — A Serious Charge 398 

CHAPTER LIV. — An Extraordinary Affair 404 

CHAPTER LV. — Rise, Decline, and Fall of Yusef Badra 410 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



[FROM SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR.] 



Eastern Ruins. Frontispiece. PAQ - 

The Mummies 21 

Catacombs of Palermo 24 

Sicilian Monk 33 

Casa degl' Inglesa. 44 

Descent of Mount Etna 51 

Sicilian Postillion. 62 

Sicilian Gendarmes 64 

Sicilian Beggars 68 

Counsel for the Accused 75 

Amphitheatre of TaoRxMINa 78 

Convent near Athens 97 

Smyrna from the Anchorage 107 

Pilgrims on Shipboard 116 

A Business Transaction 127 

The Hamil 131 

Shopkeepers 138 

Turkish Beauty 143 

General View of Constantinople 152 

The Dancing Dervishes 155 

The Howling Dervishes , 158 

English Traveler recognizing a Vekus and Hercules... 168 

Town of Rhodes 171 

View in Larnica 172 

^usef 178 

Saladin 185 

Saladin in Action 188 

Ben-Hozain 192 

Castle of Djbel 201 

Column in the Desert 210 

Yusef dancing the Raas 223 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

The Arab Muleteer 240 

A Gentleman of elegant Leisure 243 

Ancient Arch in Damascus 260 

Ibrahim 261 

Baths of Damascus 268 

Taking it Easy 285 

The Mill of Malaha 303 

Tokina 318 

Baths of Tiberias 325 

Jerusalem 359 

Mohammedan Sepulchre 363 

Pilgrims to Jerusalem 367 

The Arab Guard 370 

Crossing a River 391 

Greek Bishop 39 

Village of El Mukhalid 394 

Kaisariyeh 397 

Ruins near Tantura e 403 

The End of Yusef 421 



> 




S E F. 



T U 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



CHAPTER I. 



PALERMO. 



It was rather early in the season to start for the East 
September was not yet over. I had thoroughly explored 
Naples and the neighborhood ; and the only question was. 
how to dispose of the fine weather. Lounging about the 
quay one afternoon it occurred to me that a trip to Palermo 
would be just the thing. There were signs pasted up every 
where of an immense steamer, of wonderful horse-power, 
bound for that very port. I walked into the first Bureau (in 
Naples, every office is a Bureau) : the same large steamer 
was over the door under full way, with a heavy head of 
steam, for Palermo. The name of the steamer was printed 
on the paddle-box in big golden letters ; it was the Ercolano. 
When I told the gentleman, who was waxing the points of 
his mustache behind the counter, that I wanted a passage in 
the Ercolano, he shook his head despondingly, and applied 
some more wax to one of the points. This induced me to go 
out again and look at the sign. There certainly was no mis- 
take about the name, and I endeavored to make him under- 
stand that it was a ticket I wanted for a passage in the 
steamer represented upon that sign. He applied some addi- 
tional wax to the other point of his mustache, shook his head 
despondingly again, and, as well as I could understand him, 
said he was very sorry ; that he didn't know any thing about 



14 



A G1RA THROUGH SICILY 



such a steamer ; perhaps it was at number seventy-one, twt 
doors above. I went into number seventy-one, two doors 
above, and was told by a small but very imposing gentleman, 
with a brass band on his cap, that seventy-one was the bu- 
reau of the French steamer ; it didn't go to Palermo ; it went 
to Marseilles, and he would be very happy to have me land- 
ed there* perhaps the Bureau of the Neapolitan steamer was 
number seventy-six, which I would find somewhere on the 
same street, about eight or ten doors above — or below. I 
walked up and down a long time, till I was fortunate enough 
to find number seventy-six. The gentleman in that Bureau 
was smoking a cigar, which he continued to smoke in silence 
for two minutes ; at the expiration of which time he calmly 
removed it, and said in reply to my question concerning the 
Ercolano, that there wa^mmi a steamer; it was called the 
Ercolano ; it was a Neapolitan steamer ; it was bound for 
Palermo ; the proper place to apply for passage was at the 
Neapolitan Bureau. He was not exactly certain where the 
Neapolitan Bureau was, but thought it was number sixty- 
nine ; that was his impression — sixty-nine. I told him that 
I had already applied at sixty-nine ; to which he responded 
by a shrug of the shoulders, a pinch of snuff, and some strange 
contortions of the face, as if he had accidentally swallowed 
the snuff-box. It may have been that my manner of speak- 
ing the Italian was not clear, or that my understanding of 
the Neapolitan was less so ; at all events I could make no- 
thing of these signs, so I returned to Bureau sixty-nine. There 
were some other officers in sixty-nine this time ; and, after 
some consultation, they arrived at the conclusion that it was 
the Bureau of the Neapolitan steamer for Palermo. I offered 
money for my passage ; but they refused to take it, or to give 
me a ticket without it ; they said something else was neces- 
sary, my passport and certain vises and cartes. Next morn- 
ing I got my passport and the vises and cartes, and they still 
refused to give me a ticket. Certain other vises and cartes 
from the Polizia were necessary. I went to the Polizia and 
got certain other vises and cartes, and they still refused to let 
me have a ticket ; a certain word was omitted in one of the 



PALERMO. 



15 



vises. I went all over the city of Naples in search of aH the 
authorities that were concerned in the insertion of that word, 
and eventually got it written down in black and white, with 
ail the additional stamps that were necessary to give it val- 
idity. This time they reluctantly conceded that the passport 
was vised in due form ; that all the documents were correct ; 
that I could get a ticket by waiting a while until the officers 
w r ere served. The Bureau was quite filled with Neapolitan 
officers, who were all very much covered up with red cloth 
epaulets, tin buttons, brass sword-cases, and general em- 
broidery. I waited at least an hour, and then, by the sheer 
force of perseverance, prevailed upon the gentleman who was 
engaged in making porcupine quills of his mustache, to cease 
his labors one moment, and give me a ticket. All the harm 
I wish that man is, that these quills -may be broken off before 
his personal beauty produces such an effect as to cause any un- 
fortunate lady to marry him ; for I am certain if ever he gets 
a wife, they will run her through the eyes in less than a week. 

On the 30th day of September, 1851, in virtue of all these 
proceedings, I left Naples, in the Neapolitan steamer, foi 
Palermo. The Ercolano was a good specimen of the Italian 
steam service. It had nothing like the amount of horse- 
power that I expected from the bills ; nor was it in any re- 
spect a good steamer ; but it afforded an excellent example 
of what a nation already distinguished in ancient art, may 
attain in the way of modern art by intercourse with less 
classical countries. "Without any exception it was the small- 
est, and dirtiest, and worst-contrived craft, to be moved by 
steam and paddles, that it was ever my fortune to behold. 
There were on board two hundred and fifty Neapolitan sol- 
diers and officers, on their way to Sicily, for the better pro- 
tection of that remote portion of the Neapolitan kingdom. 
After we got well out to sea, there came on a gale, and every 
one of these soldiers, and every officer who commanded them, 
fell dreadfully sea-sick ; and thus two hundred and fifty fight- 
ing characters, armed to the teeth, were in the brief space of 
a few hours cast down and mixed together upon the decks, 
at the mercy of any body who chose to attack them. I 



16 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



verily believe that had I been a person of blood-thirsty dis- 
position I could have slain them all with a bodkin. Such, 
however, was not my nature. The poor little fellows looked 
so forlorn, so small and dirty, so sorry they were going to an 
unknown country, twenty hours distant from their native 
land ; so unlike men who would ever kill any body, that I 
was exceedingly moved, and took occasion, when the cap- 
tain of the boat was not looking, to give one of them a pinch 
of snuff. My natural impulse was to give them snuff all 
round, but they were so piled up over the decks, the heads, 
and heels, and mustaches, and arms, and legs in such a 
state of confusion that it was utterly impossible to move 
without stumbling over a misplaced limb, and falling' upon a 
sick man. 

Thank heaven, the hills of Bagheria at last hove in sight. 
T was glad enough to see land, as well on my own account 
as that of the soldiers, who certainly could not have survived 
the horrors of the sea another night. The voyage from Na- 
ples to Palermo is usually performed in twenty hours. Owing 
to the rough weather, and the want of additional horse-power, 
it took us twenty-four. "We were six hours more getting 
ashore, which made it thirty. The reason of this delay was. 
that the soldiers had to be landed first. Then the captain 
had to go ashore and have a talk with the officers of the 
port ; then he had to come on board again and walk up and 
down the deck and smoke his cigar ; then the passengers 
had to get certain cartes, and some of them, who were going 
beyond Palermo, their passports under certain restrictions ; 
then the officer of the customs had to come on board and 
have a talk with the captain ; then he had to go on shore 
again, and the health officer had to come on board ; then, 
after all the officers were done going on shore and coming 
on board, the baggage had to be properly distributed ; and, 
after the baggage was distributed, and every thing appar- 
ently all right, there was an additional delay of two hours 
for the purpose of showing the passengers that they were in 
the hands of persons high in authority, who would permit 
them to land, as a matter of favor, whenever it became ap- 



PALERMO. 



17 



parent that the public interests would allow such a course tc 
be pursued. 

Xext to Naples, the harbor of Palermo is perhaps the 
most beautiful in the Mediterranean. Indeed, many con- 
sider it quite equal in picturesque- effect to Xaples ; for, 
although it has not Mount Vesuvius, or the breadth and ex- 
rent of shore line, yet the eye comprehends more at a glance, 
and a nearer approach is permitted without destroying the 
scenic beauty of the mountains and villas. At a sufficient 
distance to embrace a complete view of Kaples and its en- 
virons, the city is almost lost ; but the finest view of Paler- 
mo is just opposite the town, within a mile or two. The 
harbor forms a beautiful crescent, surrounded by hills covered 
with verdure throughout the greater part of the year ; villas 
and orange groves adorn every prominent point: rich gar- 
dens lie along the shores ; vessels of many nations float sleep- 
ily on the smooth waters of the bay ; fishing-boats, crowded 
with sunburnt crews, ply merrily through the flashing brine ; 
and along the wharves groups of swarthy sailors, quite like 
the piratical-looking fellows you see in the French prints, are 
constantly lounging, smoking, chatting in strange tongues, 
and casting sly glances at the Sicilian belles, who look like 
operatic chorus-singers ; and then there are pale Italians 
without number, and occasional Greeks ; with a sprinkling 
of American and fresh-looking English captains, to give va- 
riety and animation to the scene. There is* an aspect of 
business activity about the streets and shops of Palermo, not 
a little cheering after one has been mouldering for some time 
among old ruins and cities of by-gone prosperity. Yet Paler- 
mo is not what it might be under a judicious system of gov- 
ernment. I hold myself in readiness to apologize for the re- 
mark, when called upon, to his Majesty the King of the two 
Sicilies, and to declare, if required, that the Neapolitan 
States are well governed ; that the people are well governed ; 
that I never saw so many soldiers and so much governing in 
all my life. Every man seems to be individually governed, 
and so careful is his Majesty of the faithful administration 
of the laws and the personal security of his subjects, that the 



18 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



ramifications of government extend into every family circle ; 
and wind every body up as in a cobweb. The stranger who 
lands at Palermo, and succeeds in getting through the Polizia, 
will respect good government all the rest of his life. I have 
a very pleasing impression of the officer in attendance there. 
He opened my knapsack when he heard me speak English, 
because he knew I must be an Englishman to address him 
in that language ; he opened my letters one by one and care- 
fully read them, commencing at the signatures and ending 
at the dates ; and when he saw that I was not Mr. Glad- 
stone, and had no printed documents for private circulation 
among the people of Sicily, he gave me a kindly nod and let 
me pass. Now, I depend upon that officer, as a man of 
honor, never to divulge the contents of my letters — especially 
one that was written in German and some private memoranda 
in shorthand. 

The streets of Palermo are wider than those of the princi- 
pal cities in Italy, and at night the shops present a very 
cheerful appearance. Cafes abound in all the public places, 
but there are none, equal to the cafes in Florence. I visited 
during my stay the magnificent villa of the Marquis Fourche, 
which is embellished in the style of a Pompeiian palace, with 
fountains and interior decorations designed strictly according 
to the antique models found in the ruins of Pompeii. The 
mosaic marble saloons, frescoes, and general arrangement of 
the chambers, as also the style of the furniture, afford a very 
good idea of Pompeii in its days of splendor. It was a festa 
day in Palermo, so I went to all the churches worth seeing, 
and heard some good music at the Santa Catherina. Coming 
from Italy, I was surfeited with sight-seeing of this kind, but 
I still found much to interest me in Palermo, where something 
of a different architectural order may be seen. 

"With respect to the fine arts in Palermo, of which the 
Marquis of Artala, in his Guide to Sicily, speaks in enthusi- 
astic terms, I must confess I saw nothing of a high order of 
excellence. He dwells with particular admiration on the 
magnificent statuary which he says adorns the public prom- 
enades. I believe I thoroughly explored Palermo and ita 



PALERMO 



environs, but I saw no magnificent statuary ; and was at 
length obliged to come to the conclusion that great allowance 
must be made for the florid imagination of gentlemen who 
write guide-books. Often have I walked for miles through 
the dusty streets of an Italian city, baking myself into an 
Egyptian mummy under a burning sun, to see some exquisite 
gem of art, and when I reached the place found a stick or a 
stone, or an old daub of a painting, that I am free to confess 
I would never have recognized as the work of a master-hand 
had I not been told so. The statuary in the churches of 
Palermo is generally exceedingly bad ; the paintings arc of 
very little merit, most of them being disgusting illustrations 
of scenes that never existed in the Scriptures or any where 
else, badly drawn, badly painted, and in the worst possible 
taste. In one of the churches I was introduced with great 
solemnity to a picture of the Madonna, which was carefully 
covered to preserve it from the vulgar gaze. I paid two 
caiiini for the privilege of seeing it. Judge of my astonish- 
ment when the grave old sexton drew back the curtain and 
revealed to my wondering eyes the dingy features of an old 
black woman, with a silver crown on her forehead, that 
made her skin look a good deal like darkness visible. The 
pupils of her eyes were gilt with gold, and her eyebrows were 
radiant with precious stones. Her dress was of tawdry lace, 
glowing with little patchwork of silver paper ; and altogether 
she was the most extraordinary object I ever saw ; yet the 
old sexton bowed to her reverentially and said she was a 
great work of art. 



CHAPTER II. 



CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 

3hief among the wonders of Palermo are the Catacombs 
of the Capuchin Convent, near the Porta d'Ossuna. It is 
said to be a place of great antiquity; many of the bodies 
have been preserved in it for centuries, and still retain much 
of their original freshness. Entering the ancient and ruinous 
court of the convent, distant about a mile from the city, I was 
conducted by a ghostly-looking monk through some dark pas- 
sages to the subterranean apartments of the dead. It was 
not my first visit to a place of this kind, but I must confess 
the sight was rather startling. It was like a reve] of the 
lead — a horrible, grinning, ghastly exhibition of skeleton 
forms, sightless eyes, and shining teeth, jaws distended, and 
bony hands outstretched ; heads without bodies, and bodies 
without heads — the young, the old, the brave, the once beau- 
tiful and gay, all mingled in the ghastly throng. I walked 
through long subterranean passages, lined with the dead on 
both sides ; with a stealthy and measured tread I stepped, 
for they seemed to stare at the intrusion, and their skeleton 
lingers vibrated as if yearning to grasp the living in their em- 
brace. Long rows of upright niches are cut into the walls 
on each side ; in every niche a skeleton form stands erect as 
in life, habited in a robe of black ; the face, hands, and feet 
naked, withered, and of an ashy hue ; the grizzled beards still 
hanging in tufts from the jaws, and in the recent cases the 
hair still clinging to the skull, but matted and dry. To each 
corpse is attached a label upon which is written the name 
and the date of decease, and a cross or the image of the 
Saviour. 

Soon recovering from the shock of the first impression, I 



CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 



21 




was struck with the wonderful variety and marked expression 
of character in the faces and forms around me. There were 
progressive dates of death, extending from remote centuries 
up to the present period, the niches being so arranged as to 
admit of a regular order of deposit. Many of the bodies 
stood erect, as if just lifted from the death-bed ; the faces 
colorless, and the horrible agonies of dissolution stamped upon 
the features ; the lower jaws hanging upon the breast ; the 
teeth grinning and glistening between the parched lips, and 
the black hue of sickness about the mouth and around the 
sunken sockets of the eyes ; and in some the sightless orbs 
were open and staring with a wild glare of affright, as if 
peering into the awful mysteries of the future ; while others 
wore a grotesque laugh of derision still more appalling, with 
the muscles of the mouth drawn up, the eyebrows lifted, the 
head tilted knowingly on one side, the hair matted in horny 
tufts, the bare spots on the skulls, like the piebald wig of a 
harlequin ; the skeleton arms outstretched, and the bony fin- 
ders spread as if to clutch the relentless destroyer, and wrestle 



22 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



with him to the last. These I fancied were lively fellows., 
who were carried off suddenly after a midnight carouse. I 
sat down on a box containing a dead child, and looked up at 
a row of bodies opposite that attracted my notice in a par- 
ticular degree. In the middle stood a rolicking fellow, about 
two years dead, whose sunken eyes appeared still to burn 
with the fire of life and humor. His hands were lifted in a 
deprecating manner over a congregation of corpses sitting on 
a shelf below. Some appeared to be listening ; some grinning 
at his humorous harangue ; others, with their heads together, 
seemed to question the propriety of his anecdotes ; old gentle- 
men, with knitted brows and lantern jaws ; ranges of bodies 
stood on each side of him as if laughing, talking, praying, 
dying, suffering, listening, rejoicing, and feasting at the ban- 
quet of death. One little man, in a dingy suit of black, sat 
in a corner ; the end of his nose was eaten off by the worms ; 
his mouth was compressed, and had a pinched expression ; his 
hands grasped eagerly at something. I thought that little 
man was a miser, whose death was caused by starvation. 
Another figure, a large portly body, stood in a conspicuous 
part of the vault ; it was the corpse of a fat old bishop, whose 
jaws were still rotund and smooth with good living, and his 
sleek hair was patted down to his head as with the oil of 
bygone roast beefs and macaroni soups, and his jolly cast of 
countenance betokened a system liberally supplied with the 
juices of life, and a conscience rendered easy by attention to 
the creature comforts. That man lived an easy life, and died 
of good feeding. He was carefully labeled, and carried on his 
wrists a jeweled cross. There stood in another part of the 
vault a fiery orator, with open mouth and distended arms. 
The head was thrown back, the breast partially bare, a few 
tufts of black hair fell from his piebald skull ; his round star- 
ing eyes were stretched wide open, and his brows arched 
high on his wrinkled forehead ; he looked toward heaven for 
inspiration. I fancied I could hear the naming torrent, as it 
blazed and crackled and scintillated from his thin ashy lips. 
It was the glowing eloquence of an ardent soul that left its 
parting impress upon the clay ; the form yet spoke, but the 



CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 



23 



sound was not there. Passing on from vault to vault, I saw 
here and there a dead baby thrown upon a shelf — its inno- 
cent little face sleeping calmly among the mouldering skulls ; 
a leg, or an arm, or an old skull, from which the lower jaw 
had fallen ; now a lively corpse, jumping with a startling 
throe from its niche, or a grim skeleton in its dark corner 
chuckling at the ravages of the destroyer. Who was the 
prince here ? Who was the great man, or the proud man, or 
the rich man ? The musty, grinning, ghastly skeleton in the 
corner seemed to chuckle at the thought, and say to himself, 
" Was it you, there on the right, you ugly, noseless, sightless, 
disgusting thing ? Was it you that rode in your fine carriage, 
about a year ago, and thought yourself so great when you 
ordered your coachman to drive over the beggar ? Don't you 
see he is as handsome as you are now, and as great a man ; 
you can't cut him down now, my fine fellow ! And you, there 
on the left. What a nice figure you are, with your fleshless 
shanks and your worm-eaten lips ! It was you that betrayed 
youth and beauty and innocence, and brought yourself here 
at last to keep company with such wretches as I am. Why 
there is not a living thing now, save the maggots, that 
wouldn't turn away in disgust from you. And you, sir, on 
the opposite side, how proud you were when I last saw you ; 
an officer of state, a great man in power, who could crush all 
below you, and make the happy wife a widowed mourner, 
and bring her little babes to starvation ; it was you that had 
innocent men seized and cast into prison. What can you do 
now ? The meanest wretch that mocks you in this vault of 
death is as good as you, as strong, as great, as tall, as broad, 
as pretty a piece of mortality, and a great deal nearer to 
heaven. Oh, you are a nice set of fellows, all mixing to- 
gether without ceremony ! Where are your rules of etiquette 
now ; your fashionable ranks, and your plebeian ranks ; your 
thousands of admiring friends, your throngs of jeweled visit 
ors? Why, the lowliest of us has as many visitors here, and 
as many honest tears shed as you. Ha ! ha ! This is a jolly 
place, after all ; we are all a jolly set of republicans, and old 
Death is our President !" 



24 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 




Turning away from this strange exhibition of death's 
doings, I followed the old monk into the vaults allotted to the 
women. Here the spectacle was still more shocking and im- 
pressive The bodies were not placed in an upright position 
like those of the men, but were laid out at full length in 
glass cases ; the walls on both sides were covered. 

The young, the gay, the beautiful, were all here, laid 
lowly in the relentless embrace of death ; decked out in silken 
dresses, laces, and jewelry, as in mockery of the past. Each 
corpse had its sad history. I saw a young bride who was 
stricken down in a few brief months after her marriage. She 
was dressed in her bridal costume ; the bonnet and vail still 
on, the white gloves drawn over her skeleton fingers ; a few 
withered flowers ]aid upon her breast by the mourning one 
she had left behind. Through the thin vail could be seen a 
blanched, grinning, bony face ; the sunken sockets of the eyes 
marked around with the dark lines of decay ; the long hair 
drawn in luxuriant massps over her withered bosom. Another 



THE CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 



25 



held in her arms a skeleton "babe. Some were habited in 
walking dresses ; others in all the finery of ball-room costume, 
with gay silks, slippers, silk stockings, and tawdry lace. It 
was a ghastly sight to look under the bonnets, and gaze upon 
the sunken ashy features, decked around with artificial flowers 
to trace in those withered lineaments no lingering line of 
beauty, no flickering ray of the immortal spirit, but a dreary 
history of mortal agony, decay, and corruption. Yet here the 
husband comes to hold communion with the beloved soul that 
once dwelt in that mouldering corpse ; to look upon those 
blanched features, that were once animate with life and affec- 
tion ; to kiss the cold lips, and feel no returning warmth. 
And here, too. the father, brother, sister, and wife come to 
gaze upon the dead ; and here the mother comes to weep 
over the withered corpse of her babe. Once a year, as I learnt 
from the old monk, the relatives of the deceased come to pray 
for the salvation of their souls, and deck the bodies with 
flowers. 

Many a night had that old monk spent down in these dark 
vaults, among the dead ; not as a penance for evil-doing, 
though he confessed that he was weak and sinful, but to pray 
for the soul of some brother, who had been his companion in 
years past. It was not gloomy to him, he said; it made him 
hopeful if not happy : for he felt, when surrounded by these 
mortal remains, that he Avas nearer to God. There were 
friends here, whom he had loved in youth and manhood ; 
whose hands he had grasped in fellowship, whose eyes had 
beamed kindly upon him when his heart was sad : now grim 
and motionless in the dark recesses around him. He liked to 
gaze upon them, and think of a re-union with the immortal 
spirits that had left them tenantless. 

Surely that old man was sincere. "What more was the 
world to him than to the dead with whom he minglec 
What pleasures could life have to one whose capacity for 
earthly happiness had long since been destroyed by continued 
self-denial, by the tearing out from his heart of every unbid- 
den hope, by fasting and penance, and by all the sacrifices of 
light and sunshine that could turn inward the tide of thought 7 

B 



26 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY- 



What save the contemplation of the future ? Yet it seemed 
as if in his midnight watches he must sometimes feel unde- 
fined terrors check the flow of his blood ; that the rustling of 
the night air among the folds of the shrouds, and the drop- 
ping asunder of skeleton forms ; the sudden grating of the 
doors, when moaning gusts of wind swung them open upon 
their hinges ; the dry rattling of fleshless jaws, the gnawing 
of bones by the vermin, the sepulchral gloom, must some- 
times startle him from his reveries like a coming solution of 
the dread mystery. Who can tell — not even himself — of all 
the strange thoughts that flit through his brain in the dreary 
watches of the night ; — what weird visions he sees of life 
brought back again into those ghastly corpses ; what faint 
moans rise from out the darkness — moans for lives misspent, 
and never more to return upon earth ; wild bursts of anguish 
for errors that can never be retrieved, prayers for one drop of 
mercy before the day of eternal doom ! In these dread, dark 
hours, I thought how the cold sweat must gather upon his 
brow, and the strength forsake him, and the clammy grasp 
of the unseen hand — the skeleton hand that never relents for 
youth or beauty, for fame or virtue — draw tight around his 
throat, and make his breath come thick and short, and his 
eyes stare affrighted, like the sightless orbs of the dead along 
the walls. 

From the conversation of the monk, I learnt that these 
catacombs are supported by contributions from the relatives 
of the deceased, who pay annually a certain sum for the pre- 
servation of the bodies. Each new-comer is placed in a tem- 
porary niche, and afterward removed to a permanent place, 
where he is permitted to remain as long as the contributions 
continue ; but when the customary fees are not forthcoming 
the corpses are thrown aside on a shelf, where they lie till the 
relatives think proper to have them set up again. Whole 
shelves are filled with skulls and bodies of the dead, put out 
of the way to make room for others of a more profitable 
character. 

It might be supposed that the air of the catacombs is in 
iome degree affected by the fresh bodies ; but this is not the 



THE CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 



27 



case. There is no offensive odor, and the visitor would 
scarcely know, if he did not see them, that he was surrounded 
by the dead. I could perceive no difference in the atmosphere 
of these vaults from that of any other subterranean places, 
except a slight smell of mould, not altogether disagreeable. 
The fresh air is admitted from the top, and it is to its ex- 
treme dryness' that the preservation of the bodies may be 
attributed. 



CHAPTER III 



JOURNEY TO CATANIA. 

Among the many curiosities of the city is an establishment 
for foundlings. The institution is designed to prevent infanti- 
cide. It is a large gloomy old building, in an obscure part of 
the town, and must be approached with circumspection lest 
m the inhabitants of the neighborhood should indulge in erro- 
neous suspicions. I threw all the responsibility on my guide, 
however, and went to see it in open daylight. There is a 
hole in the wall large enough to admit a good-sized bundle, 
inside of which is a revolving machine, such as they use in 
post-offices for the delivery of letters, with four compartments, 
each large enough to hold a bambino. The unfortunate 
mother, who is either unable or unwilling to support her 
offspring, rolls it up in a small package, which she carries to 
the pigeon-hole at night, thrusts it in, gives the revolving 
baby-holder a turn, and departs with all possible speed. A 
bell is so connected with the machine as to arouse the nurses 
on the floor above. By pulling a string the whole establish- 
ment is whirled up aloft, and the piccola bambina tumbled 
out of the package into the arms of the matron, who duly in- 
spects it, labels it Angelo, or Francisco, or Antonio, as her 
taste may dictate, records the date of its admission in a 
register, its sex, &c. ; and so commences the foundling life of 
the debutante. The mother is permitted to take it away 
whenever she chooses, but it is seldom the little unfortunate 
is called for. What the moral effect of this institution is, it 
is not for an inexperienced person like myself to determine. 

. During my sojourn in Palermo I visited Morreale, a village 
situated on a hill, about three miles distant The chief object 



JOURNEY TO CATANIA. 



of attraction here is a very ancient church, in which may be 
seen some of the finest mosaic in Sicily, and a court contain- 
ing two hundred double columns, each different from the 
other. Among the pictures in mosaic is a representation of 
St. Paul in the act of pulling the devil out of somebody's 
mouth ; to which one of the reverend padres pointed with a 
grim smile of triumph. I believe he suspected that I had 
something of the kind in me that could be extracted by hard 
pulling ; but I gave him a couple of carlini, which seemed to 
afford him as much satisfaction as if he had extracted an en- 
tire nest of devils. 

After a stay of four days, I took my post in a rumbling old 
diligence for Catania, on the southeastern side of the island. 
The distance is a hundred and seventy Sicilian miles from 
Palermo. It was late at night when we started; for you must 
know that diligences in Sicily always make it a point to start 
at the most unseasonable hours. The pleasure of the trip was 
in no degree enhanced by the information, confidentially con- 
veyed to us by the conductor, when we asked him why we 
had a guard, that on the trip from Catania, just three days 
before, the diligence had been robbed ; that the mountains 
were infested with banditti, and we might consider ourselves 
fortunate if we reached Catania without broken heads. I 
had heard so much of the robbers in Italy, who were always 
somewhere else, that I had no great faith in those of Sicily ; 
but, inasmuch as all parties united in terrible stories of the 
bad character of the Sicilians, I thought there might be suffi- 
cient truth in it to be a little cautious ; so, having a very 
slim purse, I put . it in my boots, and slept comfortably for 
the night — as much so at least as a person can when he has 
to hang on outside on the driver's seat, for want of one in the 
interior. It was a bright moonlight night, and we jogged on 
pleasantly enough, up hill and down hill, and over rugged 
roads, and through dark, low, dirty-looking villages, till day- 
light broke, and the sun rose over the barren mountains with 
a refreshing warmth. That sun was welcomed most heartily 
by the whole company, for the mountain air had chilled us 
throughout ; and I am not sure but it would have found us 



30 



A GIEA THROUGH SICILY. 



frozen stiff, had it not been that at each post we were roused 
into a fit of honest indignation at the inordinate demands of 
the postillions, hostlers, and guards. The postillions charged 
us half a carlin for driving us ; the hostlers charged half a 
carlin for putting the horses in ; the guards robbed us of half 
a carlin for preventing us from being robbed ; and the beggars 
begged the loose change from us, because they were in want 
of money, and thought they had a legitimate right to be paid 
for wanting it. Little boys begged as a matter of amuse- 
ment and education ; old women and old men begged, whether 
they were in need of funds or not, as a matter of example to 
the rising generation ; and after one party of beggars had 
chased us from the bottom of a hill up to the top, and done 
their very best in the way of hopping on crutches (which they 
only made use of for the occasion), there was another party 
ready to begin the moment we stopped, without the slightest 
reference to the labors of the first party, and when they were 
done we were chased to the bottom of the hill by a third 
party, and so on to the end of our journey. 

But the real beggars are tame and reasonable in their de- 
mands compared with the soldiers, postiUions, and conductors 
who have charge of the diligence. With them it is a matter 
of right to fleece every unfortunate gentleman who places 
himself in their power. They live on him. He is meat and 
drink to them. His pockets are their pockets. He is a sort 
of gold mine into winch they are continually digging. They 
explore him ; they find out how many precious veins he has ; 
and they insert their picks and shovels wherever the dust 
glimmers, and root it out with surprising perseverance. By 
the time he reaches the end of his journey he is dug clear 
out, and they turn their attention to other mines. 

Let me warn the traveler who thinks of making the tour 
of Sicily, not to delude himself with the idea that when he 
pays for a seat in the diligence, or a seat outside of it, that he 
is done paying — that the owners thereof consider themselves 
under the slightest obligation to take him to his place of des- 
tination. You simply pay for the use of a foot or a foot and 
a half of cushion (according to your breadth of beam), and the 



JOURNEY TO C ATAXIA. 



31 



contract is concluded. You may be left, as I was on the road 
to Syracuse, in the middle of the public highway, without 
horses or driver, an object of mingled w T onder and derision to 
the inhabitants of a populous village — stared at as the man 
who wouldn't pay ; ridiculed as the man who couldn't go 
without horses ; abused in an unknown and abominable 
tongue, for refusing to be legitimately swindled ; and com- 
pelled, in the end, to give an additional buono memo for cre- 
ating the difficulty and losing temper. Good humor and 
small change are the only locomotive powers by which you 
can get on in Sicily. The one keeps you in a state of self- 
satisfaction ; the other greases the wheels, makes the whip 
crack, and the horses go. Depend upon it, you will never 
gain an inch by a rebellious spirit against customs w T hich you 
can not change. 

Of the character of the country in the interior of Sicily, I 
can only speak as it appeared to me in the month of October, 
after the parching heats of summer. The brilliancy of the 
skies and the salubrity of the climate at this season of the 
year can not be surpassed in any part of the world ; but I am 
not sure that it is the best season to enjoy the scenery. Cer- 
tainly the parched and barren aspect of the whole country 
gave me a very unfavorable opinion of the fertility of the soil, 
or the beauties of Sicilian scenery. Nearly the entire tract 
of a hundred and fifty miles lying between Palermo and Cata- 
nia is a perfect desert of rocky mountains and barren valleys, 
without water or trees, and nothing to indicate any means by 
which the inhabitants subsist, save here and there a miser- 
able-looking spot of terraced ground, scratched over, and 
dotted with the stumps of grape-vines. Yet they do live, and 
apparently without labor ; for, during my w T hole journey to 
Catania. I do not think I saw a dozen men at work. An in 
telligent Italian, however, informed me that the land, though 
apparently so sterile, yields abundant crops when cultivated, 
and requires very little plowing. The villages throughout the 
interior are the dirtiest and most wretched-looking places 
imaginable ; filled with beggars and ragged idlers, and dilap- 
idated to the last habitable degree. Syria, or the Holy Laud 



32 



A -GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



can scarcely furnish a more deplorable example of the decay 
of civilization in the old world than one meets with at every 
turn of the road throughout the interior of Sicily. It is almost 
impossible for the American traveler, accustomed as he is to 
progress and enterprise, and all their concomitant results, to 
comprehend the barbarous condition in which these poor 
people live. Passing through the villages at night, I saw 
many of them asleep on the road-side, without covering 01 
shelter ; and the squalor and destitution of those who lived 
in houses surpass belief. "Whole families are huddled to- 
gether in one wretched apartment, without beds or furniture, 
living in common with mules, goats, and swine, and about 
as cultivated as the brutes around them. Few that I con- 
versed with had ever heard of America, and even those who 
knew there was such a country, had no idea whether it was 
in Cliina or in England. That such a state of things should 
exist in the nineteenth century, in a country once so high]} 7 
civilized, and still boasting antiquities that excite the admira- 
tion of the world, is almost incredible. 

The implements of agriculture, the rude and half-savage 
appearance of the people, the entire absence of the comforts 
of civilization, all bore evidence of the depressing effects of 
military rule. " What object is there in these poor wretches 
endeavoring to benefit their condition ?" said my friend, the 
Italian, to me. " What good will it do them to increase their 
crops, or build better houses, or educate their children ? The 
more they have, the heavier they are taxed ; they naturally 
think they might as well remain idle as labor for the support 
of a horde of brutal soldiers to keep them in a state of slavery ; 
and there is no incitement to education, for it only makes 
them the more sensible of their degraded condition. Yet it 
is not to be contended that they are fit for self-government ; 
all they need is a judicious and humane system of laws, which 
will afford them adequate protection against the errors and 
follies of despotic rulers. They are not deficient in capacity 
or industry, where they have any object in making use of 
their natural gifts. You see them now in a state of hopeless 
degradation and bondage." 



JOURNEY TO CATANIA 33 

While the Italian was talking, a Capuchin friar came to 
the door of the diligence to beg for the church. I thought 
my friend might have added some reflections on this branch 
of the subject, that would have 
shown more clearly the root 
of the evils under which the 
Sicilians labor ; but being a 
good Catholic he was silent 
I contented myself by giving 
the poor friar a baiocco. and 
making a sketch of his face as 
he stood waiting for the Italian 
to give him another. There fttW' f * J 
was plenty of time to get a r ] i 
good likeness. 

I said we started from Palermo at night. It is a j< urney 
cf thirty-six hours to Catania, making just two nights and 
one day on the road. One would naturally suppose it would 
be quite as well to set out in the morning, and make two days 
and one night of it : but these are among the unaccountable 
peculiarities of Sicilian travel. 

Catania is a large town, containing a population of fifty 
thousand, many tine buildings, manv soldiers, many churches 
and some of the finest convents in Siciiv. The monastery of 
San Benedetto is the most extensive establishment of the kind 
I have yet seen. Here the monks, who are chiefly of noble 
families ; live in royal style. If I had money enough, nothing 
would please me better than to adopt the cowl and sack, and 
become a brother in the monastery of San Benedetto. The 
building is a magnificent palace, ornamented with courts and 
fountains, gardens, pleasure-grounds, bowers for devotional 
exercises, splendid marble halls in the interior, suites of ele- 
gant apartments, pictures of all the saints, organs that fill 
the spacious chapels with a flood of solemn music ; statuary, 
mosaic, and voluptuous frescoes — all that can charm the 
senses and make glad the heart of monks. The wines are the 
choicest selections of the Marsala and San Xicoloso brands ; 
the macaroni is the purest and richest : the fish are the best 





9 

34 A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 

that can be fished out of the bay of Catania ; the chickens 
and capons, the salmis, the salads, the roast-beef and mutton 
are unexceptionable They have their separate apartments; 
their servants, their private wines, their — but it won't do to 
be too particular. You know the brotherhood do not use 
these things — they are for the use of visitors. Perhaps with 
all their failings they are as good as most men ; and it must 
be admitted that no traveler can visit the convent of Monte 
Sanario or Yal Ombrosa, in Tuscany, or indeed any of the 
convents throughout Italy or Sicily, without a grateful sense 
of their genuine good-nature and hospitality. They are not 
soured by an ascetic mode of life, or misanthropic from theii 
seclusion ; the world is open to them, and they enjoy it in a 
quiet way. 

Close by the convent of San Benedetto is a female convent. 
I was not permitted to enter, having no friends there. 

Six miles from Catania, on the road along the coast to 
Messina, is the group of rocks where it is said the Cy elope? 
were born. They are called the Cyclopean Isles. I went up 
one forenoon to make a sketch of them. The weather was 
unpropitious ; and, after a glance at the rocks and a thorough 
drenching, I was compelled to return without the usual boat 
excursion to the grotto. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA. 

It is a gcod forenoon's work to prepare for the ascent of 
Mount Etna. There are horses to be hired, bargains to be 
made, warm clothing to be put in readiness, provisions to be 
laid in, brandy and cigars to be stowed away for the night ; 
and sundry other little matters to be attended to, if the ad- 
venturer designs spending the night on the mountain. My 
companion on the occasion was a young Englishman attached 
to the army at Malta, a very pleasant and gentlemanly 
traveling acquaintance ; he was anxious to see the sun rise 
from the summit of the mountain. To this arrangement I 
was opposed for several reasons : first, I had often seen the 
sun rise from the top of a mountain ; secondly, the season was 
late, and it is no pleasant journey over the beds of lava to the 
crater of Mount Etna in the middle of the night. But, inas- 
much as my friend had no recollection of ever having seen 
the sun rise from a mountain, I gave up, and agreed to be 
victimized. 

The distance from Catania to the crater of Mount Etna ife 
twenty-three miles ; the area of the base covers an extent oi 
more than a hundred miles ; and the height, according to the 
most authentic French measurement, is eleven thousand 
four hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is generally 
covered with snow from October to June ; but, owing to 
an unusually fine autumn, we were fortunate in finding it 
entirely free from snow on the 10th of October, and we after- 
ward learned that it remained so until the beginning of 
November. On the road from Palermo we made repeated 
inquiries as to the practicabil ty of the ascent at this season ; 
m 



36 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



but it was not till we came in sight of it at a distance of forty 
miles that we could ascertain any thing satisfactory. In fact, 
nobody that we asked knew any thing about Mount Etna, or 
had ever heard of such a mountain — at least under that 
name. Some thought it must be in Italy, and others declared 
there was no such mountain. Our conductor knew it when 
he saw it, but he could not tell us two hours before when we 
would see it. 

At two o'clock we sallied forth, duly mounted and capar- 
isoned. The animal upon which I rode was intended for a 
horse, I believe, but it bore very little resemblance to that 
noble animal. Had any body offered to bet me ten dollars 
that it wouldn't drop before I got half way to San Nicolosi, 
I would have taken him up. Rosinante was nothing to com- 
pare with the bony, shaggy, sway-backed old charger that 
bore me out of the gates of Catania. 

Immediately after leaving the suburbs of the town, the 
ascent commences, and it continues, more or less, the entire 
distance of twenty-three miles to the summit of the mountain. 
The road as far as San Nicolosi is tolerably good — the first 
part of it, to the fountain, being a public highway to the 
principal villages back of Catania. The devastating effects 
of the volcanic eruptions are visible every where on the road- 
side, and even below Catania the face of the country is black- 
ened with masses of the lava. The foundations of the villages 
along the sea shore for miles, the walls around the fields, the 
lanes and terraced grounds, are all formed of volcanic depos- 
its, and give a dreary aspect to the whole country ; hundreds 
of villages lie buried beneath the desolating streams that 
have poured from the crater in times past ; vineyards and 
olive groves, castles, villas, works of art, thousands of men, 
women, and children, lie mouldering under those fierce floods 
of ashes and lava. Other towns and villages have sprung 
up on the ruins ; thousands of living beings dwell in the 
same places, and look up every day with careless indifference 
at the smoking crater ; vineyards and olive groves are nour- 
ished from the bones of the dead. What matters it ? No- 
body believes there will be another eruption in his lifetime ; 



ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA. 



37 



and, if it comes, then it will be time enough to think of 
escape. So they live on in a happy sense of security ; and, 
if the climate permitted, no doubt the crater itself would be 
inhabited. Does any body refrain from traveling by railway 
because cars have run off the track ? Do the people of the 
West go in keel-boats because steamboats blow up ? Does a 
man abstain from going to the mines of California because 
his brother or friend has :; shuffled off the mortal coif in a 
gold pit ? 

Vineyards thrive in the lava of Mount Etna. The whole 
district of San Nicolosi, which has been covered a dozen 
times, and which will most likely be covered again the very 
first time old Etna rouses from his long siesta,, and belches 
forth his fiery floods, is thickly inhabited, and doubtless would, 
if practicable, go on increasing and extending up toward the 
summit till it got into the regions of fire and brimstone. 

The village of San NTicolosi is about two hours from Ca- 
tania. We reached the locanda, or inn, an hour or so before 
sunset ; and having nothing there to interest us, we cast 
about us for some means of passing the rest of the afternoon. 
The padrona, a good-natured, talkative fellow, informed us 
that there lived not far off one Senor Gemmellaro, who was 
a sort of conspicuous character in the neighborhood, and who 
spoke good English, and was always glad to see Englishmen 
and Americans — in short, that he could tell us a good deal 
about Mount Etna that would be of use to us. Encouraged 
by this piece of information, we set out, under the padrona's 
guidance, to pay a visit to Senor Gemmellaro, who was at 
his villa outside the village. 

A pleasant walk of half a mile through the narrow lanes 
that separate the vineyards of Nicolosi brought us to the gate 
of Senor Gemmellaro' s villa. Here we found collected forty 
or fifty merry damsels, with baskets on their heads filled with 
the grapes of the vineyard. It did our hearts good to see the 
raerry sunburnt faces of these damsels, and hear theii jovial 
voices as they sang their songs of gleesome labor. A happier 
looking set of beings I never saw, in their ragged dresses and 
brc ad-brimmed hats : and I venture to say they were as 



38 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



happy as they looked. These were the peasant girls of the 
country. 

Senor Gemmellaro met us at the gate in the true spirit of 
a fine old country gentleman. <; I am very glad to see you/' 
said he, " though I have hut little to offer you here. You 
see my country house there — a mere straw cabin, but good 
enough for an old bachelor.'"' The cottage was indeed a cu- 
riosity. Robinson Crusoe never designed or inhabited any 
thing more picturesque. Pleasantly shaded by trees stood 
this rustic little wigwam, with its peaked straw roof and 
single cloor. and the inviting aroma of grape vines and flowers 
around it. and in front a laughing, dancing, buxom gang of 
country girls, full of life and fun. and apparently not at all 
disposed to work. " They are a very troublesome set," said 
Senor Gemmellaro; "I can't do any thing with them." 
Then the old gentleman would laugh and shake his head at 
the girls : " Ah. you young imps ; you think because I am a 
bachelor you can do as you please with me. Never mind, 
I'll pay you up ; I'll get a wife to keep you all in order." 
Here the old gentleman would laugh again, until his eyes 
seemed ready to pop out of his head ; and the girls would 
laugh, and we laughed as a matter of politeness. 

We went into the cottage, where we found the roof orna- 
mented with choice selections of grapes and various produc- 
tions of the villa. The old gentleman prides himself on a 
particular wine, which he makes with his own hands, to 
which he gallantly gives the name of ' J Vino del Donna." It 
is a wine peculiarly for the ladies ; and I must say it is the 
very best that could be devised for the delicate palate of the 
fair sex. Any lady who could drink two glasses of the Vino 
del Donna without experiencing an immediate inclination to 
accept of the first offer, must be possessed of an adamantine 
heart. The grapes are perfectly delicious — far superior to 
any we had tasted down in the lower country. 

We learned from Senor Gemmellaro that the climate and 
soil of San INTicolosi are peculiarly adapted to the cultivation 
of the grape. Black and parched as the whole face of the 
country appears, it produces most abundant crops, and the 



ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA. 



3* 



quality of the wine very far surpasses that of the Marsala 
region in richness and delicacy. Wealthy families often come 
up to spend the summer here, in order to enjoy the pure air 
and the delicious grapes and wines of the neighborhood. 

The view from San Nicolosi over the valley of Catania is 
one of the finest in Sicily. Yineyards, w T hite shining villas, 
groves of olive and almond trees, meadows, and ruins of half 
buried villages are spread out below in all the variegated 
hues of a living panorama, bounded by the glistening sea and 
the far-off hills of Syracuse. From the rustic observatory of 
our host we had a sunset view of this magnificent region 
that made an impression never to be effaced. Senor Gem- 
mellaro was delighted at the effect of his skill in rustic archi- 
tecture, and I have no doubt attributed the admirable man- 
ner in which the sun went down to the remarkable construc- 
tion of his observatory. 

We walked back with him, after feasting ourselves on figs, 
grapes, wine, and scenery, to the village, where he took us 
into his old palazzo and showed us all the curiosities of the 
establishment. There were dogs innumerable in the yard, 
white rabbits and gray rabbits, squirrels, and cats, and rats, 
pea-fowl, and guinea-fowl, and all manner of fowl ; strange- 
looking things creeping on the ground and up the grape-vines ; 
old guns, and horns, and shot-pouches hanging under the 
piazza ; old vases to catch the rain, and antique columns 
starting up out of the ground in all directions. It was a 
strange, bachelor-like old place, with no sign of life about it 
save that of the strange animals that kept company with 
their old master. Yet he seemed to be happy, and to take a 
quiet pleasure in feeding his pets ; perhaps as much as most 
people do in feeding their wives. 

The cabinet of Senor Gemmellaro contains a rich and won- 
derful collection of volcanic specimens ; lava in all possible 
forms ; some in the shape of snakes, lizards, and pigs ; others 
not unlike old castles, statuary, columns, and antique vases ; 
alsg coins of rare value, relics of Sicilian history, old papers 
and old books, and a thousand curious things impossible to 
describe. 



40 



A GIUA THROUGH SICILY. 



In his register of visitors were the names of some distin- 
guished travelers. I saw some few names of Americans of a 
recent date. Chief among those were Mr. E. Joy Morris and 
family, and Mr. Alexander Clements, of Washington, who 
made the ascent in company last spring a year ago ; and of 
a later date, I believe in May last, those of Professor SilHman 
and a party of friends, who had spent several days in a scien- 
tific tour in the neighborhood of San Nicolosi. The ascent 
of Mount Etna has been rendered much less difficult of late 
years than it formerly was, by the laudable exertions of Senor 
Gemmellaro in opening better mule paths, and removing 
many obstacles that formerly existed. All travelers unite in 
speaking highly of his hospitality and intelligence, and none 
will be disappointed in visiting his cabinet of volcanic curi- 
osities. 

Naturalists make four divisions of soil and production be- * 
tween the base of the mountain, commencing at Catania, and 
the summit ; the piedmont e, covering an extent of about 
eight miles, embracing villages, country residences or villas, 
vineyards and meadows ; the sebrosa, or nemorosa, five miles, 
producing pine trees and ilex, oaks, coarse grass, and wild 
flowers, but destitute of springs ; the scoperta, three miles in 
extent, mostly of sand and patches of wild plants , and the 
deserta, three miles farther, extending to the summit, con- 
sisting almost entirely of lava, scoria, and ashes. 

Down to the present period there have been seventy-five 
eruptions, twelve of which were prior to the Christian era. 
That of 1669 destroyed a great number of villages, and did 
great damage to Catania; but in 1693 occurred the great 
eruption, accompanied by earthquakes, which destroyed' sixty 
towns, including Catania. The latest eruptions were those 
of 1831, '32, '38, and '42. It is not my province, however, 
;o go into a history of these convulsions of nature, and their 
causes and effects. They have been described at great length 
m the works of many learned travelers who have visited this 
region, though much yet remains to be written 



CHAPTER V. 



THE CRATER. 

At eight o'clock, after a good supper at the locanda, we 
set out for the crater of Mount Etna. It was a mild, clear 
night ; the moon was in her prime, and the stars shone out 
like gems of crystallized light, without a single cloud to ob- 
scure their glorious radiance. Our horses being no longer 
available, I was reluctantly compelled to leave my favorite 
old charger and take a mule. 

Oh, ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven, what omni- 
potent works ye revealed to us that night ! What still, shad- 
owy forests of gnarled old oaks, and yawning precipices of 
darkness unfathomable, opened to us as we toiled upward ; 
what ghostly mountains, and cities, and temples of blackened 
lava loomed through the shadowy distance ; what boundless 
valleys of mystic light lay outspread beneath us ; what a 
solemn stillness reigned over the slumbering earth ! Up, 
high over all, with its bare and grizzled cone, towered the 
smouldering crater, lonely and desolate, but mighty in its 
desolation. "Where are the castles and palaces that once 
decorated the dim valleys in the depths below? where are 
the boasted deeds of Roman and Saracen heroes ? where are 
the victors and the vanquished now ? where is all that the 
vaunted ambition of man has accomplished ? Not for human 
ken is it to penetrate the dim vista of centuries, and tell of 
all that lies buried beneath those dark floods ; not for all the 
records of the past to reveal the millionth part of their sad 
mysteries. 

But I think I hear my friend, the Englishman, say, " Sad 
nonsense all this ; Etna is a stunning place, to be sure ; dev- 
ilish high, devilish cold, and all that ; throws out an amazing 



42 



A G1RA THROUGH SICILY. 



quantity of smoke now and then — didn't do a bad job when 
it buried all those beggars of Romans and Saracens, to say 
nothing of the number of rascally Sicilians it has since cover- 
ed up. Nonsense — all fudge !" 

In about three hours and a half from San Nicolosi we 
reached an old tree lying in a sheltered ravine, where the 
guides lit a fire and fed the mules. A very marked differ- 
ence was perceptible in the atmosphere at this elevation ; the 
cold was penetrating, though not apparently of great intensity. 
It was with difficulty we could keep our feet and hands warm, 
and maintain a healthy circulation of the blood ; but, after 
resting an hour or two, we pushed on. 

From the oak forest we emerged into a region of scoria and 
lava, abounding in narrow and difficult passes, and of the 
wildest and most desolate aspect. The moon, which had 
thus far befriended us, now disappeared, and left us in almost 
utter darkness. It was surprising how the guides adhered to 
the path over the rough beds of lava ; often, as we thought, 
depending altogether upon instinct ; in many places there ap- 
peared to be not the slightest trace of a path. Huge masses 
of lava, over which we stumbled, deep gulches, and yawning 
precipices, all enveloped in gloom, threatened each moment 
to bring us up with a sudden check ; but we always contrived 
to keep on, winding round them, and into them, and through 
them, after the stalwart figure of old Pedro, who took the 
lead and never for an instant slackened his pace. How that 
man kept breath enough in his body to sustain life during so 
many years of hard climbing, I could never divine ; for, ac- 
customed as I was to exercise, I must say it made me puff 
not a little to keep pace with him for one night. The high- 
est bluffs, the roughest passes, the deepest chasms were all 
the same to old Pedro ; up he rose and down he went, some- 
times looming against the sky like a gigantic wizard of the 
mountain in his shaggy capote, sometimes sinking with rapid 
and steady strides into unfathomable depths ; now grasping 
the scraggy points of lava and lifting himself out of myster- 
ious pits ; now scrambling over precipices of scoria like a 
monstrous bear ; a moment after, astride of his mule, on some 



THE CRATER. 



43 



lonely ledge of rock, ever toiling onward with the same noise- 
less, steady, unwearying tread. A weather-beaten, grizzled, 
manly fellow was Pedro, the guide ; rough as the winds, and 
rains, and smoke of old Etna could make him ; dirty and 
shaggy like his tattered capote ; hut, with a strong pair of 
legs and an unflinching will (in the way of climbing), he had 
a childlike nature and a heart that filled well his capacious 
breast. As we neared the summit of the mountain the air 
became so rarefied and the cold so piercing that I felt as if 
there was not an ounce of blood in me, and it was only by 
hard walking I could keep up any thing like a circulation 
"Pedro," said I, "it's getting mighty cold; don't you think 
so ?" " Si, signore, unpoco — ma jpilliare quest a" pulling off 
his capote. " No, no, thank you, keep it on." Pedro said 
nothing, but casting his capote around me, fastened it on in 
such wise that it was no use to struggle against his kindness : 
a moment after he was striding up on a ridge of lava, far 
above, looking like a great black giant that had come sud- 
denly out of the earth. 

We reached the last station, or Casa degV Inglesa, about 
three o'clock in the morning. The cold was not so intense 
as I had often experienced before, but much more penetrating 
from the decreased power of resistance in the blood. My 
friend, the Englishman, who had ridden nearly all the way, 
was as stiff as a piece of buckram when he dismounted, though 
not disposed to admit that he felt at all "uncomfortable." 
There was not much in the Casa Inglesa to cheer us, save 
the shelter afforded by its dilapidated walls. Originally the 
house consisted of three rooms, a kitchen, and stable, but 
now the stable is in ruins, and we found but one of the rooms 
at all habitable. Into this we betook ourselves, with a couple 
of the mules that were half famished by cold and hunger ; 
and, thus quartered, awaited the proper time to commence 
our ascent to the crater. Pedro, taking pity upon us, broke 
off a piece of the door, which, together with a small contri- 
bution from the window-frame, and the remains of an old 
bench, made a very tolerable fire ; and if there had been a 
chimney we might have been rather comfortable. Wrapped 



44 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



in the shaggy capote, I stretched myself on a piece of plank, 
and looking into the crackling pile, aronnd which sat the 
guides and muleteers, moralized on the vaulting ambition of 
man which induces him to cross stormy seas and climb vol- 
canic mountains. Said I to myself (for the Englishman was 
lost in a cloud of smoke on the other side), Here you are, at 
three o'clock in the morning, ten thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, cold as a lump of ice, choking with smoke, 
with scarce a shoe on your feet or a coat on your back ; tossed 
raid tumbled about till you hardly know what language you 
talk or where you belong ; now up on the top of Mount Etna 
to see the sun rise, and next to take a peep into the valley of 
Jehosaphat. And all for what ? Quern sabe, as the Span- 
iards say. 

The Casa degV Inglesa is a small stone building, con- 
structed in the rudest manner, for the temporary accommoda- 
tion of travelers on the way to the crater. It is ten thousand 
feet above the level of the sea, and is of course uninhabited, 
being merely a place of shelter, without water or other ac- 
commodations by which life could be sustained in that remote 





CASA DEGL' INGLESA. 



THE CRATER. 



45 



region. According to Senor G-emmellaro, it was built by his 
father, the distinguished naturalist, in 1810, when the En- 
glish army occupied Sicily. It was originally intended that 
it should have attached to it an observatory, with all the in- 
struments necessary for determining the temperature and ob- 
serving the volcanic phenomena of Mount Etna ; but, owing 
to the want of suitable enccuragement, this design was aban- 
doned. For many years past it has been repaired from time 
to time by Senor G-emmellaro entirely at his own expense. 

The dawn of day began to lighten up the eastern horizon 
as we sallied forth, with our staffs and guide, from the solitary 
walls of the old Casa. All was black and craggy under foot, 
and the sharp gusts of wind moaned gloomily against the 
rugged masses of lava as we wound our way among them. 
Neither path nor trace was perceptible to us now, for the 
earth was covered with beds of dark lava ; yet onward strode 
Pedro, with the same sure and steady tread, looking neither 
to the right nor the left, and never for a moment stopping to 
search for the path. How many times he had gone up that 
mountain, by day and by night, when it was covered with 
snow and when it was wrapt in darkness, in sunshine and 
storm, from youth to the sere of manhood, not even himself 
could tell. A hard life it was at best ; up and down those 
dreary heights for more than twenty years ; a crust of bread 
or a bone now and then from some tender-hearted tourist to 
Keep his spirits up, and a good many sunrises and sunsets to 
feed his imagination. That Pedro was a man of imagination 
was attested by the number of charms he wore to keep away 
the evil spirits that infest these lonely mountains, and if he 
had thoughts at all, what strange thoughts they must have 
been ! His whole world lay between San Nicolosi and the 
crater — a very strange world in itself; a world of burnt earth, 
of ashes, and lava, and sulphur, and smoke, of wondrous 
fires and earthquakes past, and eternal ruin and desolation in 
the future. "What to others was the great event of a life was 
an every-day affair to Pedro ; in his heels he carried more 
practical knowledge of Etna than all the learned men of 
Europe carried in their heads. God speed that grim and 



46 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



stalwart mountaineer ; may his last smell of brimstone be 
in this world, and his last ascension be into that better one 
where there is everlasting rest for the weary ! 

From the Casa Inglesa to the highest crater occupies 
about an hour. The direct elevation is about fourteen hun- 
dred feet, but the winding of the path more than doubles the 
distance. 

As daylight broke clear and broad over the still earth, and 
the eastern sky gleamed with the first rays of the rising sun, 
we reached the highest peak, and turned to look down into 
the vast depths below. The whole island was wrapt in an 
impenetrable mass of sleeping clouds ; covering mountain, and 
valley, and ocean as a mantle of mist, while not a shadow 
dimmed the bright sky above. It was thus upon the solitary 
cone of Etna, with the broad lucid firmament arched over 
us, and the vast sea of floating clouds outspread below, that 
there uprose before us a sublime picture of the shattered ark, 
as it rested of old amid the subsiding floods on the heights of 
Ararat, when the fountains of the deep and the windows of 
heaven were stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained. 

On the right and on the left yawned a vast crater, lined 
with banks of sulphur and ashes ; and from out the bowels 
of the earth came clouds of hot smoke, rolling upward till 
they vanished in the thin air ; and a thousand fissures around 
sent out jets of scalding steam, and smouldering fires seemed 
ready to burst forth and spread ruin and death under their 
seething floods of lava. And now, from the brd of clouds 
that rested on the deep, up rose the sun, scattering away the 
thin vapors that hung around his couch, and filling the air 
with his glorious radiance ; and the slumbering ocean of mist 
that lay upon the valleys upheaved under his piercing rays 
of heat and light, and gathered in around the mountain tops; 
and green valleys, and villages, and vineyards, and gleams 
of bright waters lay outspread in the calm of the morning, as 
it opened upon the shores and vales of Sicily. One gigantic 
shadow, the shadow of the mighty Etna, stretched across the 
lesser mountains below as far as the eye could reach ; and 
the valleys beneath it were still covered with clouds and the 



THE CRATER. 



47 



larkness within the shadow. Up rose the sun higher ai.fi 
still higher ; and now the floating vapors that rested upon 
the earth disappeared, and there was nothing left but the 
bright glowing abyss of mountain and valley, bathed in his 
effulgent rays ; for ' ' his going forth is from the end of the 
heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it : and there is no- 
thing hid from the heat thereof." There was not a breath 
of air to disturb the glittering sea ; ships lay motionless on 
its unruffled surface ; and on the shores glistened, like flakes 
of snow, the villages that were washed by its waters. Far 
in the distance the towering mountains of Calabria reared 
their rugged peaks, bounding the view toward the east ; to 
the north lay Messina and the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis ; 
and stretching southward the coast swept under the base of 
the mountain ; its shores lined with villas and towns, and 
indented by the bays of Catania, Agosta, and Syracuse. Back 
toward the west lay the interior of Sicily, a desert of parched 
and barren hills, with scarce a tree or spot of verdure to re- 
lieve the sterility of the vast wilderness. And now, as we 
gazed entranced upon this scene of awful sublimity, the smoke 
rose up in heavy masses from the crater, and whirling around 
us with a sudden gust, shut out sea and earth, and filled the 
air with noxious gases ; and the sun had a lurid and ghastly 
glare through the gloom, and we thought the earth trembled. 
But soon the gust passed away, and left us unharmed amid 
the smouldering masses of ashes and sulphur. 

My friend, the Englishman, considered the whole thing 
" excessively fine ;" in which sentiment I heartily agreed 
with him, with the understanding, however, that it would 
require the simultaneous rising of the sun, and moon, and all 
the stars to get me up there again in the middle of the night ; 
a sentiment in which we both agreed, and thus compromising 
all previous diversity of tastes, we sat down in a comfortable 
bed of sulphur, and, warming our hands in a jet of steam, lit 
a couple of cigars, and smoked cosily with old Etna. 

It is difficult, without any means of measurement, to give 
a correct idea of the extent and depth of the craters ; and, 
jnfortunately. I have no books at hand from which to derive 



45 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



the required data. The extent of the rim of the upper crater 
must be about three miles and a half; the depth, as far 
down as the neck or narrowest part, perhaps three or four 
hundred yards. The nearest estimate we could make of the 
depth was by rolling down large pieces of lava, and listening 
to the reverberation made as they struck for the last time. 
We went down a short distance within the rim of the great 
crater to collect some volcanic specimens, but were soon driven 
back by the smoke. The sides are so precipitous that, to 
make any extended descent with safety, it would be necessary 
to be provided with ropes ; and then it could only be done in 
very calm weather, when there is but little smoke. I am 
not sure whether this feat has ever been accomplished ; but, 
so far as I could judge, there is no reason why it should not. 
The crater of Mount Vesuvius has been explored by several 
daring adventurers, and there does not seem to be any greater 
difficulty in effecting the descent into that of Mount Etna. 
For that matter, indeed, it requires neither ropes nor ladders 
to get down ; start at the top and you are sure to get to the 
bottom ; but it might be found agreeable, after reaching the 
bottom, to have some means of getting up again. 

Standing on the ridge between the two craters, where there 
is barely a foothold, I could not help thinking how short a 
time it would take to reach an entirely new and unexplored 
region. A little step, just a foot, would give a sufficient start; 
and then what a sliding, and rolling, and skipping there would 
be ! what a whizzing through smoke and brimstone ! what 
visions of devils and fiery furnaces within the bowels of the 
earth ! The whole scene was worthy of Dante. It was ter- 
ribly infernal ; indeed I may say it was infernally so. Even 
old Pedro, as he stood wrapt in his shaggy capote, looming 
through the smoke, and peering over into the seething abyss, 
looked diabolical ; black and grim of visage he stood, as good 
a looking devil as ever walked upon brimstone. Now, I do 
not mean to speak lightly of a serious subject ; but I do think 
no person can visit the crater of Mount Etna without entei- 
taining a much more vivid idea of the lower regions than he 
ever had before. For my own part, I dreamt of nothing but 



THE CRATER, 



A* 



flames of sulphur, huge figures with cloven feet, and little 
dancing blue fellows with pitchforks all the next night, which 
I assure you, on my honor, was not the effect of a bad con- 
science, but altogether the result of the vivid impression cre- 
ated in viewing the crater. 

We remained on the summit about two hours, enjoying all 
the changes of light and shade produced by the rising of the 
sun and the dispersing of the light clouds that rested in the 
lower strata of air. An entirely clear sunrise might have af- 
forded us a more extended prospect, but we were satisfied it 
could not have presented such a magnificent combination of 
atmospheric phenomena. Some traveler speaks of having 
seen the Island of Malta with the naked eye from this point ; 
but, although the weather was tolerably clear before we com- 
menced our descent, we saw nothing of it. It is quite pos- 
sible, however, and not at all improbable. The distance can 
not be more than a hundred and twenty miles — the nearest 
point of Sicily from Malta being about eighty miles ; and it is 
a common thing in Malta on any clear day to have a distinct 
view of Mount Etna. I have myself seen the Andes, in ap- 
proaching Callao, at the distance of a hundred and twenty 
miles. It is perhaps easier to see a great distance, looking 
upward through an atmosphere decreasing in density, where 
there is a distinct outline, than downward through a less 
transparent medium, where there may be no outline. I have 
often seen land from the deck of a vessel when it could not 
be seen from the masthead. The Peak of Pico has been seen 
at the distance of a hundred and twenty miles, and the Peak 
of TenerifFe at a still greater distance. 

Our descent to San Nicolosi was of course a good deal 
easier and rather more pleasant than the night's journey up. 
With the mules it occupied very nearly the same time ; but 
I had become quite convinced that there was a prejudice 
against me on the part of the whole mule species ; I had turn- 
ed involuntary somersets from divers mules ; I had been bit- 
ten at and kicked at by mules ; I had endeavored to befriend 
mules by leading them up steep hills instead of riding them, 
and they were always sure to pull back and try to go down , 

C 



50 



A GIBA THROUGH SICILY 



I had attempted to lead them down hill, and they invariably 
insisted upon going up ; I had bought mules at three hundred 
dollars, that looked well on the morning of the purchase, 
but found they could not go by night, in consequence of be- 
ing foundered ; in sober truth, my talent did not lie in the 
navigation or management of mules ; so I walked. A walk 
down Mount Etna includes a slide of about a mile from the 
edge of the crater, which I must tell you about. 

Commencing near the crater is a steep bank of ashes and 
cinders, extending nearly to the Oasa Inglesa, by which the 
trip is made with a locomotive speed quite delightful. Peep- 
ing over the brink of the precipice, you enter into a calcula 
tion as to the probability of having your limbs dislocated, in 
case you should strike some unseen rock ; and about the time 
you become satisfied that a leg or an arm must be sacrificed, 
there rises a dust some hundred yards below, and you see a 
large dark body bouncing down like a man of India rubber, 
scattering cinders and ashes before it. and yelling like a demon 
Away it goes, rising and jumping and tossing, till it looks like 
a great black bird hopping down into the gulf of lava below, 
dwindling as it goes, till you see nothing but a dark speck. 
Then down dashes another and another, and you see that it 
must be old Pedro leading the way, and the stragglers fol- 
lowing. Committing yourself to Providence, you draw a long 
breath and j amp over too ; and then, Per Baccho, how you 
go ; up to your ankles in cinders, ten feet every jump ! The 
wind whistles through your hair ; you half shut your eyes to 
keep out the dust that f;as been raised by the guides ; you 
shout like a drunken man. without knowing why, Hurra ! 
glorious ! splendid traveling this ! hold me somebody ! stop 
me, Pedro ! by Jupiter there goes my hat ! I knew it couldn't 
stay on ! for heaven's sake belay me ! It is no use, nobody 
will belay you ! There you go. faster and faster at every 
jump, till you don't know which end will come out first. 
Now you bet ten to one that your feet will win the race ; 
now a hidden mass of lava brings them up with a sudden 
jerk, and you'd lay heavy odds on the end of your nose — yes, 
the nose must win ; you feel the premonitory jar as it nears 



THE C RATES,. 



51 



the end of the track ; terror seizes your soul ; you jump des- 
perately ten, twenty, thirty feet at every bound, twisting 
yourself back in the- air like a cat ; you vow in your agony of 
mind that you will never drop poor puss over the bannisters 
again in order to see her land on her feet : another leap, an- 
other twist does it ; your feet are in the air, and you go sail- 
ing down gallantly on the seat of your breeches. Hurra ! clear 
the track, there ! don't stop me ! glorious ! splendid ! Here we 
are. Pedro, all right ; keep a look out for my hat, it'll be down 
here presently ! Bless my soul, what a slide that was ! 




Emerging from the oak forest, three hours below, the view 
in the noon-day sun is beautiful beyond description. The 
whole semi-circle of valleys and mountains, villages and 
vineyards, as seen through the vistas of dark foliage, seems 
hung in the golden atmosphere like some magnificent scenic 
illusion ; bright and glowing, and full of rich coloring. The 
tinkling of the goat-bells from the rocks below, the songs of 
the shepherds, and the mellowed sounds of life from the dis- 
tant valleys, rise upon the still air like the murmuring of 
dreamy music ; and around about us the earth was fragrant 
with wild flowers ; and the gnarled old oaks made a pleasant 
shade. 



52 



A GIUA THROUGH SICILY. 



In due time we reached the locanda, at San Nicolosi, 
where we enjoyed a good wash and a dinner that did great 
honor to the padrone. We called again upon Senor G-em- 
mellero, to give in our experience; and, having satisfactorily 
acquitted ourselves in the way of buono manos to the guides 
and domestics, we set out toward evening for Catania. This 
time my old charger acquitted himself to the admiration of 
the entire community, local and migratory, between San Ni- 
colosi and Catania. Falling asleep at the very first step, he 
dropped his head between his fore legs and his tail between 
his hind legs, and, thus comfortably indifferent to public 
opinion, jogged on at so sleepy a pace that it was a miracle 
how we ever reached Catania. Such indeed was the force 
of example, and the striking pictorial effect of both horse and 
rider, that the venerable muleteer — a fat old gentleman of 
fifty, who rode behind — fell into a fit of musing, from which he 
gradually fell into a pleasant doze, and from the doze he fell 
into a profound sleep ; then he swayed from one side to the 
other, and bobbed down in front and bobbed back again, and 
then started out of horrible dreams ; and nodded again, and 
fell asleep again as hard as ever ; and at last, as I had prophe- 
sied from the beginning, fell off his mule. Down in the dust 
he lay for as much as two minutes in a state of mute aston- 
ishment. " Sacramento J" said he, getting up and shaking 
the dust off, as soon as he found that no bones were broken , 
" Accidenta, Donna Maria, Santa Sophia!" And, climbing 
up again on the mule, he belabored the unfortunate animal 
with such vigor and good will that it danced Sicilian waltzes 
all the rest of the way into Catania. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS. 

There is not much to be said of Catania in addition to 
what is said in the guide-books. It is a dirty, shambling old 
place, a good deal like all other towns in Sicily, and owes 
any interest that it may now possess to its history. Here it 
was that Polyphemus and his Cyclopes had their local habita- 
tion ; here was the port of Ulysses ; and Thalia and her sons, 
the Palici, were of Catanian memory ; and here dwelt suc- 
cessively the Egyptian shepherds, the Sicanians, and the 
Romans, and the Saracens, and the Normans, and heaven 
knows how many other useless and quarrelsome people, who 
did nothing but build temples and churches and kill each 
other. Mount Etna was not half so cruel as these cut-throat 
races, whose deeds are blazoned forth in history for the ad- 
miration of mankind. Not all the burning lava that ever 
desolated the plains of Sicily has done a hundredth part of 
the killing so gloriously done by the blood-thirsty hordes that 
slew their fellow-creatures on these very plains. Every ruin, 
every column, every moss-covered stone is a history of ferocious 
wars. The cathedrals and crucifixes are baptized in blood, 
and the tombs of the slayers of men are worshiped. 

The flames of Etna were not enough ; famine and pesti- 
lence were too slow ; so the. great warriors of old swept whole 
tribes from the face of the earth, and built grand cathedrals, 
and temples, and amphitheatres, and aqueducts, and public 
baths, and reigned in triumph till greater warriors slew them, 
and razed their churches, and temples, and fine edifices ; and 
history glorified them in turn, and they did great deeds in 
turn, and were slain. 



54 



A GIB. A THROUGH SICILY. 



It was civilization, all this. "We know it. because we see 
the broken statuary and the ruins of palaces and war-battered 
castles that tell us of their deeds ; and we are told that such 
things could not be done in the present benighted state of art 
and architectural knowledge. There was Homer, and Virgil, 
too, to sing the glories of war ; and there was Thucydides 
and a thousand others to make killing mighty in the world's 
history ; "and even the mist of centuries has not obscured the 
deeds therein described. And those heroes are still worshiped. 
The precious years of youth are spent in the study of these 
dark histories ; thousands who scarce can write their mothei 
tongue are taught to chant the glories of war in the dead 
languages, that they may be versed in the bloody lore of 
classic times. Oh, wondrous people ! Oh, mighty kings and 
chieftains ! Listen to a few plain facts. I am going to ad- 
dress you solemnly in your tombs, and post you up concerning 
the nineteenth century. Tourists have so long sung your 
praises that I mean to make a martyr of myself by telling 
you the truth. 

It is quite true, as enthusiastic travelers say, that your 
temples, and castles, and palaces are splendid specimens of 
architecture; that your baths are on the grandest scale ; that 
your statuary is wonderfully beautiful ; that you lived in a 
style of magnificence unknown to the people of the present 
day, except through your poets and historians ; that all the 
relics of antiquity you have left us bear evidence of great 
power and extraordinary skill. But you were a barbarous peo- 
ple at best. The very splendor of your works is an evidence 
01 your barbarism. "What oceans of money you spent on palaces, 
and tombs, and mausoleums ! What an amount of human 
labor you lavished in doing nothing ! If the Pyramids of Egypt 
were ten miles high instead of a few hundred feet, would 
the world be any the better for it — would the mass of man- 
kind be more enlightened, or more virtuous, or more happy ? 
If the Coliseum a, Rome had accommodated fifty millions 
of people instead of fifty thousand, would it have taught them 
the blessings of peace and good government, or disseminated 
useful knowledge among them ? If all your palaces were 



A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS. 



55 



built of pure gold instead of marble, would it have caused 
the thousands of human beings that you were continually 
embroiling in war to entertain a more fraternal spirit toward 
each other ? True, we go to war now and then ourselves in 
this the nineteenth century ; but it is not the chief business 
of our lives ; we do something else that is better. We don't 
build pyramids and coliseums, but w^e build railroads. The 
smallest steamboat that paddles its way up the Hudson is 
greater than the greatest monument of antiquity, and does 
more to promote the civilization and happiness of mankind ; 
the wires of our electric telegraphs carry more power in them 
than all the armies you ever brought into battle. And, for 
the matter of magnificent temples, if we had the time and 
money to waste, we could erect, for the amusement of kings, 
and women, and children, toys a great deal bigger and quite 
as useless. Your literature, your poetry and arts, only show 
how much the gifts of God may be perverted to bad purposes. 
War, and murder, and rapine, lust and bestiality, are the 
chief subjects of inspiration in what has been handed down 
to us ; yet we are asked to bow down to you with a blind 
adoration ! You had your merits and your weaknesses, just 
as we have ; the greatest of you had as much littleness as 
the greatest of us now ; you were just as weak, just as mor- 
tal, and a great deal more ignorant. Feasting, and fighting, 
and toy-making made you distinguished. We will profit by 
your follies, and endeavor to earn a name in ages to come by 
encompassing the earth with the blessings of freedom and 
civilization. 

It is very unkind, I admit, to talk to dead people in this 
way ; but the fact is, one must let off a little indignation now 
and then. Of late I have been traveling with a friend so 
overcharged with admiration for the antique, and so deeply 
imbued with classical literature, that it is quite a relief to be 
revenged by an explosion. I have patiently endured broiling 
in the burning sun that he might enjoy an old stone with an 
illegible inscription on it, and walked for miles in search of 
tombs under which were buried men whose names I had 
never heard before ; I have listened for hours to learned dis- 



56 



A G1RA THROUGH SICILY. 



courses on the wars of the Greeks and Romans, in which, to 
be candid, I felt no interest whatever ; for what consequence 
was it to a peaceful wayfarer like myself — simply an honorary 
General in the Bobtail Militia — how many were killed on 
certain occasions, or who were the best cut-throats of ancient 
times ? All this I have done from the purest good-nature. 
But now the remembrance of roasting suns, and long walks 
for nothing, and longer discourses, and lost dinners, comes 
upon me with such force that I must have some satisfaction 
Yea, have I not seen men prate learnedly about Titian, and 
Rubens, and Guercino, who scarce knew red from blue ; and 
young ladies go into ecstasies over a splendid Corinthian col- 
umn, which was Doric, or an antique fresco which was painted 
about a dozen years ago ? 

We were overtaken at Catania by a Portuguese gentleman 
and his wife, fellow-passengers in the Neapolitan steamer 
from Naples to Palermo. Doctor Mendoza was a man of the 
world and a philosopher, and we were very glad to join him 
in an extra diligence to Syracuse. He was rich in worldly 
possessions, and, like a good many tourists whom we had 
met, traveled chiefly to kill time and hunt up the best hotels. 
There was no good hotel on the top of Mount Etna, so he 
staid at the " Corunna," in Catania; "because," said he, "I 
can see Mount Etna from my window." Having ascertained 
that there was a good hotel at Syracuse, he concluded to go ; 
' and he kindly entertained us on the road with a detailed ac- 
count of the hotels through Germany, Switzerland, Poland, 
and Russia, dwelling with particular enthusiasm upon the 
style in which they get up hotels in St. Petersburg. He had 
been traveling constantly for three years in search of good 
hotels ; if he had any guarantee that there were hotels in 
Athens and Jerusalem he would go there, but had not yet 
made up his mind to run so great a risk. The interest of a 
country depended altogether upon the excellence of its hotels. 
It was a matter of surprise to me how a man should go to so 
much expense to find comfortable accommodations in uncom- 
fortable countries, when he could have found them so much 
better and so much cheaper at home or in Paris. Nor was 



A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS. .57 

my Portuguese friend alone in this mania for good hotels. I 
have seen English tourists, and I am sorry to say some Amer 
icans, made perfectly miserable by being compelled to pass 
the night in a respectable country inn, where the accommo- 
dations were not so good as those of the Parisian hotels. 

c* 



CHAPTER VII. 



ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE. 



The morning was bright and bracing as our diligence rat- 
tied out of the streets of Catania, our little postillion as sparky 
as a red-bird in his jacket and feathers ; our conductor as 
sleepy as conductors usually are, and our horses as long and 
lean and full of latent fire as the diligence horses of Sicily 
are in general. The road for seven or eight miles was along 
the shores of the bay over a low plain, passing a few scatter- 
ing farm-houses and some of the battle-fields famous in the 
history of the early Sicilian wars, ifbout seven miles from 
Catania we crossed the river Simeto, the largest, I believe, in 
Sicily. The plain through which the Simeto runs is of great 
extent, and abounds in fine meadow lands. Numbers of 
thatched cottages, of conical shape like hay-stacks, are scat- 
tered along the banks of the river, having a very peculiar 
and picturesque effect. We all dismounted at the ferry, and 
were ferried across in a dilapidated boat, which miraculously 
reached the opposite bank without sinking. The road now 
turned slightly inland, over rough barren hills, passing near 
Lake Beviero, or the Lake of Lentino, a pretty little fish-pond, 
till we reached the town of Lentini, where the horses are 
changed. Lentini is the modern name of Leontinum, once 
ranked among the most powerful cities of Sicily. It possessed 
in olden times handsome temples, rich public edifices, a pal- 
estra, and various works of art, but was laid waste during 
the wars ; and now scarcely a trace remains of its ancient 
grandeur. It is a wretched collection of dirty dilapidated 
houses, with a population of filthy and half-barbarous peas- 
antry. 



ADVENTURES ON THE ItOAD TO SYRACUSE. 59 



Here commenced that series of calamities to which I have 
already incidentally referred. Eighteen miles in the bracing 
morning air had given us a ravenous appetite. The Hotel 
de Parigi was recommended by our driver as the best in the 
place, and although it bore very little resemblance to any thing 
we had ever seen in Paris, being about as black and dirty a 
looking locanda as could well be found in Sicily, we ascended 
through the hostlery to a large bare room, with a table in the 
middle, and half a dozen wooden chairs ranged round the 
walls, and called for qualche cosa manger a — in plain English, 
something to eat. The padrona, a sour-looking woman, eyed 
us with a speculative glance, having reference to the size of 
our purses, and said : " We have nothing but eggs and bread, 
signores ; the meat has been devoured by a party that have 
just gone ahead." " Very well, then," said we, " let us have 
the eggs and bread as soon as possible." In about half an 
hour we had a scanty collazione of fried eggs, to which we 
did as much justice as the subject permitted. " Now, pa- 
drona, what is to pay ?" " What you wish, signores." <£ No, 
no ; you must fix your own price." " Then, as you have 
had nothing but eggs and bread, we will only charge you two 
dollars." " Two dollars ! why that is impossible. We have 
only had a dozen eggs and a little bread !" " Well then, say 
a dollar and a half ; that is very little for four persons, sig- 
nores." We paid the dollar and a half, and considered our- 
selves very cleverly done. As we were about to leave, our 
hostess reminded us of another small charge — three caiiins 
for the room. " What !" said, we, in an honest fit of indig- 
nation, " do you mean to say we are to pay for the privilege 
of eating your miserable collazione in this barn- of a place ?" 
" Of course, signores, you have had the use of the room." 
" Very true, but did you think we were going to eat out of 
doors ?" " By no means, and that is the reason why I charge 
you for the accommodation of the room." It was no use to 
argue against a system of reasoning so cogent as this ; the 
postillion was calling to us to come on ; so we paid the three 
carlins for the use of the room. Passing out, we were at- 
tacked by a dirty cuisine, who demanded a trifling remuner- 



60 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



ation for her services. "Please your excellencies, I cooked 
breakfast for you !" " The deuce you did ! how do you sup- 
pose we could eat it unless it was cooked ? Are people in 
the habit of eating breakfast raw at the Hotel de Parigi ?" 
" No, signores, I cook it for them, and they always give me 
something for my trouble." It was no use to rebel ; the cook 
hung to us like a leech, and it was only by paying her three 
carlins that we could extricate ourselves from her clutches. 
" Thank Heaven, we are done now !" was our involuntary 
exclamation, as we made our exit. " Aspetto, signores," said 
a voice behind, "you have forgotten the facchino." "The 
what ?" " The porter, gentlemen." "And pray what have 
you done for us?" "I attend to the baggage, signores." 
" But we have no baggage here ; it is all in the diligence." 
" Ah, that makes no difference ; I could have carried it for 
you : I must live, you know, and this is all the pay I get to 
support a large family." The claim was irresistible ; we re- 
belled at first, but it was no use, the facchino followed us till 
we had to give him a few baiocci to get rid of him. " Well, 
this beats Italy all hollow," was our unanimous conclusion, 
as we took our respective seats in the diligence ; and began to 
enjoy the luxuries of sunshine and cigars, after the storm 
through which we had passed. il Buo?w mano" said our small 
postillion. " For what, you rascal ?" " For driving you." 
c But you did not drive us ; you were asleep all the time ; we 
won't pay you !" However, we did pay him, after a great 
deal of talking. " Drive on now," shouted the Englishman. 
" Andate!" roared the Portuguese. "Go ahead," said I. 
" Asjietta, senores," cried the hostler ; " buono mano for the 
hostler." We threw the hostler a few carlins, and shouted, 
"Drive on, andate! go ahead again!" " Aspetta /" cried 
the hostler, " this is an extra diligence ; extra diligences are 
always double price. Besides, it is two posts from Catania, 
and you have only paid for one change of horses." " Diabo- 
lo," roared the Portuguese, " we have only had one change, 
and that has just been put in now." " Stunning business 
this } " said the Englishman. " Done brown !" said I. " True, 
senores, but you must pay for the half-way post." " There 



ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE 



61 



is no post there, you scoundrel — no horses — nothing at all !" 
" Da verro, signores, but these horses have done double duty; 
so they must be paid for, or they can't go on !" This was 
too bad. " Cospetto /" shrieked the Portuguese. "Exces- 
sively annoying.!" said the Englishman. " Great country !" 
said I — " great country, gentlemen I" We unanimously de- 
termined that we would not pay for changing horses, when 
no such change was made. " Go to the devil with your 
horses, then ; we won't pay a cent more." " Va bene, se- 
nores !" replied the hostler, very coolly unhitching the horses, 
and leading them off to the stable. " I'll go to the devil to 
oblige you, signores ; but I can't go to Syracuse till the half- 
way post is paid for. You will have to go on without horses, 
that's all." 

Here was a predicament ! The inhabitants of the classi- 
cal city of Lentini were pouring down from all the neighbor- 
ing streets to see the diligence that was bound to Syracuse 
without horses. Matrons with children in their arms held up 
their precious babes to see the sight ; piratical-looking fellows 
gathered around and examined us with a deliberate and spec- 
ulative stare ; the little boys shouted merrily, and called the 
attention of all straggling acquaintances to the pole of the 
diligence that pointed toward Syracuse, but wouldn't pull for 
want of horses ! What was to be done ? Go to the Mayor ? 
Perhaps there was none, and if there was, who knew the 
way ? " Senores," said the hostler, in a soothing tone, per- 
ceiving our distress of mind, "you had better pay me, and 
allow me the pleasure of putting the horses in." We con- 
sidered the advice, and took it. It was rather humiliating to 
our feelings; but we were hemmed in with difficulties on 
all sides ; in vain we looked round upon the crowd ; not a 
sympathizing face was there ; not a soul to pity us in our 
misfortunes. The pervading sentiment seemed to be — " Hit 
'em again ! they've got no friends !" There was one universal 
shout of laughter as the postillion cracked his whip, and drovf 
us rattling out of Lentini. I turned to look back as we as- 
cended the hill, and caught a glimpse of the hostler, who was 
still bowing to us with the utmost gravity and politeness. If 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



ever I meet that man on Pennsylvania avenue, it is my set 
tied intention to do him personal violence. 

As to the sparky little postillion who drove us so furiously 
out of Catania, and who afterwards fell asleep when there 
was nobody on the roadside to admire his driving, I have him 
safe enough. Here he is. Public indignation is respectfully 
solicited : 




The individual mounted upon that horse, swindled us out 
of two carlins. What he did with so much money it would 
be impossible to say ; he may have put it in his boots for safe 
keeping; but he certainly could not have deposited his ill- 
gotten gains in his coat-pockets. I only know that Ave paid 
him the sum above specified for doing certain duties that he 
never performed ; and that implicit confidence is not to be 
placed in a man simply because he wears a feather in his hat, 



ADVENTURES ON 



THE ROAD 



TO SYRACUSE. 



63 



a jacket with red cloth embroidery and small tails, and a pair 
of top-boots, big enough to bury him in when he dies. 

From Lentini to Syracuse the distance by the public road 
is twenty-four miles, making the entire distance from Catania 
forty-four miles. After leaving the valley of the Simeto, the 
country becomes barren and rugged, and there is very little 
to attract the attention of the traveler. What the appear- 
ance of the country may be in spring I had no means of as- 
certaining ; but certainly a more desolate picture of poverty 
and barrenness I never saw than it presents in the month of 
October. Naked hills of parched earth and bleak rocks ; a 
few miserable vineyards, either entirely without fencing, or 
surrounded by ragged hedges of prickly pear ; villages rudely 
built of stone, without shade or comfort, and in a wretched 
state of ruin ; an occasional mule with a load, driven by a 
man of beard and rags ; a gang of beggars, as voracious as a 
I pack of wild beasts ; here and there a half-naked and with- 
ered woman, with the rough features of a man, scratching 
the ground with a hoe. or tottering under a heavy burden, 
while her husband lies basking in the sun : litters of dirty chil- 
dren rooting in the mud. without covering of any kind — these 
are the sights that one sees on the road to the ancient City 
of the Sun, the abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn. 

In a few hours from Lentini we had a good view of the 
Cape St. Croce and the town of Agosta. Giovanni Power, 
whose " G-uida di Sicilia" I have now before me. says of 
Agosta that it is supposed to have risen out of the ruins of 
Megara, and Megara from those of the little Keybla. It was 
there, according to Herodotus, that the people were sold at 
auction, in the time of Gelon. 

From an eminence, as we approached Syracuse, we had a 
very pretty view of Ortigia, the only inhabited part of the 
ancient city. It is built on an island connected to the main 
land by a long pier and a bridge, and strongly fortified by 
high walls, forts, and castles. 

The number of gates, bridges, fortified arches, and vaulted 
passages through which one is driven before he can fairly 
consider himself within the walls of Ortigia quite surpasses 



64 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



all powers of computation. When the diligence stopped at one 
of the outer gates, we were carefully inspected by a couple of 
officers, in flashy uniforms and feathers, who politely request- 
ed us to allow them the pleasure of looking at our passports. 
One stood a little in the background, with pens, ink, and 
paper in his hand : he was evidently a subordinate character, 
notwithstanding the brilliancy of his plumage, which, from a 
hasty estimate, I calculated to consist of the tails of three 
game-cocks ; the other was a portly man, of grave and dig- 
nified demeanor, rich in tin buttons and red cloth epaulets, 
and with a mustache that would have done credit to the 
Governor himself; in fact, I thought at first that he was the 
Governor, so imposing was his personal appearance. The 




passports he opened slowly and cautiously, either from habit- 
ual contempt of the value of time, or a latent suspicion that 
: ley contained squibs of gunpowder ; and at last, when he 
had fairly spread them out, with the signatures inverted, he 
carefully scanned the contents for five minutes, and then 
calmly addressed us, in bad Italian ; "Your names, Signores, 
if you please." Our friend the Portuguese, being the oldest, 
was accorded the privilege of speaking first. " My name, 



ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE. 



65 



Signor, is Mendoza, and this lady is my wife." " Grazia, 
Signor." Then, turning to the subordinate. " Put that 
down — Men-z-z-a. Va bene." After some other questions 
as to profession, place of nativity, &c, he turned to the En- 
glishman, "Your name, Signor?" "Mine? My name is 
Norval : on the Grampian hills my father feeds his flocks, a 

frugal swam" "Excuse, Signor, what did you say? 

" Smith, John Smith, if you like it better !" 11 Va bene, Sig- 
nor ; put that down : Giovanni Smiz ; no, Semmit — Giovanni 
Semmit." The man with the tails of the game-cocks in his 
hat put it down. "And your name, Signor?" turning to 
your humble servant. " Sir," said I, with a dash of honest 
pride in the thought that I was giving a name known in the 
remotest corners of the globe, " My name is Brown — John 
Brown, Americano, General in the Bobtail Militia." " Gra- 
zia ! Signor," said the officer, bowing, as I flattered myself, 
even more profoundly than he had bowed to my friend 
John Smith. " Put that down — Giovanni Brovvenni." 
" Brown !" said I; for I had no idea of having an honest 
name so barbarously Italianized, " Si, Signor, Bruvven" 
" No !" said I, sternly, " not Bruvven — Brown, Sir." " Si, 
Signor — Bruin." " No, Sir !" said I, indignantly, " do you 
take me for a bear, Sir ? My name's Brown, Sir." " Certo, 
Signore, Bruin !" And Bruin was written down by the fea- 
thered man ; and so stands my name to this day in the offi- 
cial archives of Syracuse — Giovanni Bruin, or John Bear. 

After this pleasant little passage of official dignity and 
governmental wisdom, we rattled on over a drawbridge, and 
under an arch, and through half a dozen gates, and up a 
long pier, and through some more gates, and finally into Or- 
tigia, or modern Syracuse, where we rattled through an in- 
terminable labyrinth of narrow and dirty streets, our postillion 
alternately cracking polkas with his whip, and blowing his 
brains through his horn, scattering the astonished inhabit- 
ants in all directions, and running over lazy dogs in his mad 
career. At last we brought up near the Hotel del Sole, 
where we were dragged out of the diligence by a whole regi- 
ment of ragged facchini, and piloted into the dark recesses 
of the Sole by the bald-headed Padrone. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



SYRACUSE. 

At this hotel (the Sole) we were so fortunate as to secure 
the services of a guide, who was not only an accomplished 
cicerone, but an artist of considerable merit, and the author 
of a work on the antiquities of Syracuse. I have forgotten 
his name, but any body who visits Ortigia can not fail to 
recognize him in the elegant person of a young man, a little 
blase in his manners, who lounges gracefully about the Sole, 
and does things up as valet de place with the resigned air of 
a gentleman of broken fortune, who has been reduced to the 
necessity of bartering his classical knowledge and personal 
services for the contemptible sum of one dollar per diem. He 
will converse with you on art and history, point out to you 
all the antiquities of Syracuse, sell you his pictures, attend to 
your passport, carry your umbrella, see that your boots are 
blacked, and go of messages — all for the miserable pittance 
of a dollar a day ; and if you like he will go with you to the 
opera, and tell you the history of the prima donna and of 
each of the chorus-singers individually. For my part, I took 
it as rather a compliment that so fashionable a looking man 
should be seen in my company, and, notwithstanding the 
horror and disgust of my young English friend, always invited 
him to join us in a cigar or a glass of wine, and felt quite 
happy when he sate with us in a public cafe, sipping the 
nero with" a languid air, or dallying elegantly over a glass of 
ice-cream at my expense. 

In America one would be ashamed to exact menial services 
of so accomplished a gentleman; but in the old world it is 
so common as not to attract attention, except from strangers. 
Indeed, we republicans are much more stiff and haughty to- 



SYRACUSE. 



67 



ward our subordinates than the Germans or French, and quite 
as much, so as the English. Sometimes it is such a relief to 
be natural and kind that I try it for variety. The other day. 
up in Austria, I was caught by a party of friends in the act 
of drinking beer with our hack-driver, a very jolly, respectable 
old Dutchman ; but, from the disdainful manner in which 
they refused to join us, I felt exceedingly mortified about it, 
and resolved never to be good-natured again. The very same 
evening, walking in one of the public gardens, I met a former 
guide, with whom I thoughtlessly sat down to have a cup of 
coffee, and was in the act of being perfectly happy when my 
friends discovered me again, and this time they showed such 
decided symptoms of disapprobation that I vowed never to be 
sociable any more. Shortness of funds compelled me soon 
after to .take passage in the third-class cars, where I was ter- 
ribly afraid some one would see me — some American or En- 
glishman, I mean, because I knew nobody else would be 
distressed about it. There was a respectable-looking man 
on the next seat who spoke English. He was very chatty 
and agreeable, and it was quite a consolation to find so intel- 
ligent a man in the same reduced circumstances. We talked 
very pleasantly for some time, when he informed me that his 
master was in the first-class ; that the said master was a 
countryman of mine. I was terribly mortified, of course ; 
there, was that lonely and high-minded man in the first-class, 
and I, with the most ambitious aspirations, in the third-class 
with his courier. However, it was some comfort to think 
that I had passed my time pleasantly so far, and had received 
all the information for which the lonely man in the first-class 
was paying a dollar a day, besides the courier's expenses. 

But this is a sad habit I have fallen into of rambling off 
from the main subject. I believe I was in Syracuse. 

Now, if ever a man tried hard to get up some enthusiasm 
about a place that he had read of with wonder and admira- 
tion in early youth, I tried it in Syracuse. I went down into 
the ancient baths, and suffered damp and chilling airs with- 
out seeing any thing but subterranean passages and uncom- 
fortable holes ; through miles of ancient catacombs I roamed 
without one sentiment of admiration for the mighty dead who 



68 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



were no longer there ; bones I picked up, but they looked so 
like common bones that I threw them down again : it was 
no use ; the enthusiasm wouldn't come. As for the amphi- 
theatre at Neapolis, it is just like any other amphitheatre, 
only less perfect than those of Italy. The ancient aqueduct 
is in so dilapidated a state that scarcely a vestige remains. 
The Ear of Dionysius is one of the few things worth seeing. 
It is a large excavation in solid rock, where it is said Diony- 
sius the Second imprisoned his victims, and amused himself 
listening to their groans. The reverberation in this cavern 
is so great, owing to some peculiarity in the construction, that 
the tearing of a piece of paper produces a loud report. There 
are other excavations in the vicinity, of great size and extent, 
formerly used as prisons, but now occupied by rope-makers, 
which is much better. If Dionysius himself had turned his 
attention to the manufacture of ropes, he might have deserved 
hanging less, and have enjoyed a better reputation in history. 
The museum in Ortigia contains a very scanty collection of 
antiquities, dug out of the ruins of Syracuse. The chief at- 
traction is the broken statue of Yenus, which is a very beau-, 
tiful work of art, and justly admired. Very little remains of 
ancient Syracuse except the excavations from which the stone 
was taken to build the city. Some of these are occupied by 
a miserable population of outcasts, who seem to have no 




SYRACUSE. 



69 



houses or means of living, and prey upon travelers for the 
wretched pittance by which they support life. 

The whole region around Syracuse is rocky and desolate, 
and so little remains of its ancient grandeur that it requires 
a warm imagination to invest it with sufficient interest to re- 
pay a visit. It is difficult to conceive how a city that once 
contained a population of two millions should he reduced to 
such utter ruin : now a mere hill-side of quarries and a dirty 
little + own with a population of seventeen or eighteen thou- 
sand. Where the land was to support such a population, or 
thu port for such a commerce as they would have required, is 
a mystery that can not he solved by any evidences now exist 
ing ; and the probability is that history in this instance, as 
in many others, has greatly exaggerated the facts. 

Some distance from the gates of Ortigia, on an eminence, 
is an old convent, and near it the cemetery in which lie 
buried the remains of two Americans — one a young midship- 
man, killed in a duel, and the other a gunner. We visited 
their graves, and took copies of the inscriptions placed upon 
sheir tombs by some kind shipmates. It was sad, in a for- 
eign land, amid the vestiges of ruin and decay, to stand by 
these lonely graves and think how died these two of kindred 
blood and language, so far away from home. The young 
midshipman was cut short in his bright career, not by wasting 
disease, but by the hand of a brother officer. A brief notice 
in the guide-book was all that told the story. He fell in a 
duel, near the place of his burial ; and he sleeps his last 
sleep in a far-off land, with none to mourn over his lonely 
grave, none to feel a pang of pity, save the passing stranger. 
This was honor ! Does the slayer of that youth, if he still 
lives, feel that he has done an honorable deed when he thinks 
of the lonely grave of his victim ? Is there a charm in the 
thought to wash out the'stain of blood ? Has the admiration 
of the world made him feel in his secret heart that he is the 
braver for having risked his life and slain his fellow-man ? 
Was forgiveness of an injury so base an act that it would 
have embittered his whole future ? Oh, honor, honor ! for 
what dark and bloody crimes hast thou to answer ! 



70 



A G1RA THROUGH SICILY. 



We paid a visit to the modern catacombs in the convent, 
out found them much inferior to those in Palermo, of which 
I have given some account. While strolling through among 
the bodies, accompanied by an old monk, one of the heads 
rolled off and fell on the ground. The monk quietly picked 
it up, thanked God for the accident, and placed it on the 
neck again, but in such an extraordinary position as to pro- 
duce a most ludicrous effect. "Noil fa niente!" said he, 
" it makes no difference now," and we walked on. 

In the evening we went to an opera in Ortigia ; rather an 
odd thing, you will admit, among the ruins of Syracuse. 
The piece was quite new to me, and abounded in terrible 
love scenes, murders, and thunderings of brass instruments. 
The prima donna created a great furore by her violent man- 
ner of dying ; she died three times in succession by special 
request of the audience, and so great was the enthusiasm on 
the subject that I could not help joining in an attempt to 
get up a fourth death, in the faint hope that she might re- 
main dead till the conclusion of the opera. 

Now this, to be sure, is rather a scanty description of 
Syracuse — a mere budget of anecdotes, you will say. But 
what can I tell you without copying from the guide-book, 
which you will find in any public library. To be candid, I 
think there is more in the name of Syracuse than any thing 
else. The ruins are in such a state of dilapidation that one 
can scarcely recognize any thing, even with the assistance 
of a guide. Those of Agrigentum are considered much finer. 
After Rome, and the ruins of Pestum, near Naples, there is 
little worth seeing in Sicily in the way of ruins, except Sicily 
and its government, which may be considered a ruin on a 
large scale ; one of the grandest ruins, if we are to believe 
its early history, in Southern Europe. War and rapine, and 
all the evils of military despotism ; pestilence and famine, 
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, have scourged that ill- 
fated island till its mountains are bare and its valleys are 
waste ; and the spirit of desolation broods over its ruins even 
as the scourge of the Divine hand yet rests upon Jerusalem 
and the hills of Judea. 



SYRACUSE, 



71 



"We spent a day and a half in Syracuse, and would have 
continued on to Noto and Girgenti but for the want of time. 
It was getting late in the season, and each of us had plans 
of Oriental travel for the coming month of November. It 
must be said in favor of Sicily, at this season of the year, 
that the climate is perfectly delicious ; and the skies unsur- 
passed in any part of the world. The sunset scenes every 
evening were beautiful beyond description : and the soft tints 
of the distant mountains of Calabria, and the interior of Sicily, 
were such as Claude Lorraine delighted to paint, and which 
no other artist has ever given in such perfection. It is pleas- 
ant, after all the annoyances of passports and beggars, in a 
country like this, to get up in the morning at day-light, drink 
your coffee, pay all your bills, thank Heaven when you are 
through ; jump into the open diligence ; listen to the lively 
crack of the postillion's whip and the rattling of the wheels 
as you are whirled off out of the narrow streets ; and then, 
when fairly beyond the gates, to snuff the fresh air as you fly 
along the smooth roads by the sea-shore, and watch the first 
glimmer of the sun as it lightens up the Eastern horizon, and 
trace out cities of gold among the light clouds that float over 
the mountains of Calabria ; to draw in the fresh morning air 
again until you feel as if it would lift you up into the realms 
of pure spirits. A wild joy thrills through your blood at such 
a time — a gladness that you are born, and in the world, and 
capable of feeling its beauties ; and you inwardly thank God 
for all the blessings that life still contains, even amid the 
ruin and desolation wrought by man's evil deeds. What if 
that sun has risen for centuries over battle-fields, and scorched 
with thirst the wounded and the dying ; mingled its rays 
with the flames of Etna, and shed its softest evening glo- 
ries over scenes of terror and death : through the unfathom- 
able past, in the alternate phases of good and evil throughout 
all the wicked deeds that man has wrought against man, 
and all the fierce convulsions of nature, it has shed its heal- 
ing glow upon the human heart ; it has cheered the house- 
less and the homeless with its warmth ; it has nourished 
and ripened the fruits of the earth for countless generations ; 



72 



A. GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



it has filled millions of souls with adoration of the Divine 
Creator ; and in its light, and warmth, and sublime beauties, 
in all the joy and gladness that it sheds upon earth, there is 
still enough of heaven to make us feel that we are mortal 
here to be immortal hereafter. 

Pardon these little bursts of enthusiasm, I pray you ; the 
fact is, being unable to get up any inspiration on the subject 
of antiquities, I have to let out now and then on the sun, 
and moon, and stars by way of experiment ; for when J see 
my fellow-travelers go into raptures over an old stone wall, 
or a musty picture, or broken column, which fails to produce 
the slightest effect upon me, I begin to imagine that there 
must be something lacking in head or heart, and it is only 
by soaring among the mountains and clouds that I can con- 
jure up a particle of enthusiasm. 



CHAPTER IX. 



TAORMINA. 

On our arrival in Catania, we proceeded at once to de» 
mand satisfaction of the proprietor of the diligence for the 
misconduct of the conductor in suffering us to be stopped at 
Lentini and other postes on the road to Syracuse. We had 
drawn up a bill against him for all the extra charges for 
horses, postillions and hostlers, over and above what were spe- 
cified in the article of agreement. That article of agreement 
contained every item that we felt legally bound to pay ; and 
we had carefully preserved it as a warning to the proprietor 
that we were not the kind of people to be imposed upon. 

Our first measure, therefore, upon arriving at the door of 
the Corunna, was to send for the proprietor of the diligence. 
We had taken the names of all the conspirators who had 
fleeced us on the road — such names, at least, as they gave us ; 
and thus prepared, we formed ourselves into a sort of tribunal 
on the pavement, for the vindication of our rights and the in- 
fliction of a severe reprimand upon all who dared to outrage 
the majesty of the law. Doctor Mendoza was appointed prose- 
cuting attorney, as he was much the largest man in the party 
and rather the most fluent in Italian. The proprietor, or pa- 
drone, as he was called, when he approached and saw us 
formed into a high Court of Inquiry, turned very pale, and 
bowed a great many times before our honors. All the idlers 
about the Corunna began to gather round, and every body being 
an idler, the audience was soon of very imposing dimensions. 
Doctor Mendoza opened the case — rather violently as I thought 
— by thrusting the contract in the face of the trembling pa- 
drone, and calling him a sporka, a robber, a miserable pol- 
troon ! and a great many other names of the kind ; which 

D 



74 



A GIUA THROUGH SICILY. 



the padrone received with the most unbounded resignation. 
Indeed, had he been used to such charges all his .ife he could 
not have manifested a more forgiving spirit. His only an- 
swer was to demand meekly the cause of all this violence. 
Had he pulled Doctor Mendoza by the nose, he could not have 
offered him a greater insult than this question. For two 
minutes that gentleman was perfectly breathless with rage ; 
he stormed, he stamped upon the pavement ; he tore his hair ; 
he spluttered and spat all about ; and then, after this explo- 
sion, he shrieked in English, in Portuguese, in French, and in 
Italian ; during which time the padrone took several pinches 
of snuff, and awaited the conclusion. At the conclusion he 
demanded again the cause of this extreme violence. 

" Sacr-r-r-r ! Diablo /" screamed the Portuguese, rushing 
at him, with his fingers bent as if to claw the eyes out of 
him — " Calaboca! Per-r-r Baccho ! By dam! you rob! 
you dam rascal ! Per die quest a ? (shaking the paper in his 
face) Due baiocco !■ — clue, Pre, quatro, cinqua carlin ! Sent- 
pra ! Sempra ! Per-r-r Deo ! baiocci, carlini, scudi ! 
Sacr-r-r /" 

The counsel for the accused, which consisted of the con- 
ductor, the driver, the postillion, and several of the ragged 
facchini, belonging to the hotel, broke in and protested that it 
was the custom of the country, that any other padrone would 
have charged double the price ; they all talked at once, and 
their appeals in behalf of the padrone were so eloquent and 
moving that he evidently began to consider himself a much 
injured man, and this sense of outraged honesty so inspired 
him with courage, that he began to protest that he would 
have justice for such unmerited accusations; he couldn't 
stand it ; he'd go to the police office. 

The upshot of the whole business was, that we had to pay 
the full amount on the agreement, and suffer an additional 
loss of several carlins in fees to the counsel of the accused, 
who never ceased to persecute us till we showed symptoms 
of a disposition to pay the required amount. The ground 
upon which they based their claim was that they had helped 
ug out of the difficulty ! Such a course of conduct might 



TAOPuMIXA. 



well be considered as adding insult to injury ; but having no 
alternative we paid the fees in order to get rid of the coun- 
sel, w r ho were getting stronger every moment ; and who had 
already enlisted the sympathies of every straggler in the street. 




COUNSEL FOR THE ACCUSED. 



Leaving Catania as soon as we could get a change of horses, 
we passed in sight of the Cyclopean isles, and about dark 
reached a town distant ten miles. Here w T e stopped for the 
night, much to the disgust of our Portuguese friend, who was 
rather sore in mind after the affair at Catania, and con- 
sequently could not tolerate an indifferent hotel. He was al- 
ways particular about hotels ; but this time he was uncom- 
monly fastidious. The Posta, where we stopped, had rooms 
good enough if they were only clean. Doctor Mendoza was 
incensed at the filth of this establishment. He excited him- 
self to such a degree on the subject of the bed-linen, that he 
ended by tearing his hair and rushing out in search of another 
hotel, and I was so fearful of some tragical act on his part, 
that I ran after him, imploring him to return. There were 
only two other hotels in the place, which, he explored in the 
most violent maimer ; darting furiously into the bedrooms, 
lifting up the bed-linen, making horrible faces of contempt 



^6 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



and disgust, calling every body in the town, sporka, and then 
darting out again. In the end he was forced to return to the 
Posta, where we contrived to survive the tortures of the ver- 
min, and get something to eat. 

The next day's travel along the sea- shore was the most 
pleasant we had enjoyed in Sicily. Good-humor was restor- 
ed after all these trials of temper, and we laughed heartily 
at the incidents of our journey to Syracuse. 

We now entered a fertile region along the base of Mount 
Etna, abounding in green valleys and luxuriant vineyards, 
and dotted over with pretty little towns and farms. The 
road on either side was lined with pleasant-]ooking and pic- 
turesque villas, and the population had a much more thrifty 
appearance than that of the southern portion of the island. At 
Aci Reale, a handsomely situated town about half-way be- 
tween Catania and Messina, our party took mules to go up to 
the ruins of Taormina, about an hour distant up the<mountain. 
My experience in mules was not such as to encourage another 
trial ; so I walked. The town of Taormina is one of the 
most picturesque old places in Sicily. For variety of outline 
and wild scenic effect, I have seen nothing in Italy or any 
part of Europe to surpass the ruins of the Teatro di Taormina 
and surrounding mountains. On three sides are towering 
peaks of rock ; Mount Etna is clear and blue in the distance ; 
and the Straits of Messina and the mountains of Calabria 
lie outspread in front with all the rich coloring given by an 
autumnal sun. I stopped long enough to explore the ruins 
and make some sketches, rather to the annoyance of my travel- 
ing friends, who generally did their admiration up in broken 
exclamations, and left me to do the artistical part, while they 
pushed on in search of further antiquities. 

Touching the history of Taormina, it belongs chiefly to 
classical times. Now, to tell the honest truth, I have no pre- 
dilection for the classics. In my younger days that sort of 
reading was forced upon me as physic for the mind ; and 
having no taste for extravagant scenes of bloodshed and 
disgusting exhibitions of sensuality and folly, the result was 
that I took to Don Quixote, Gil Bias*, Robinson Crusoe, and 



TAORMINA. 



V; 



other authentic histories in which I could believe, without 
doing violence to common sense. Fortunately, however, I 
have friends who are of a different way of thinking, and who 
consider that the best and most reliable sources of knowl- 
edge are to be found in classical history. I am indebted to 
Mr. Alexander Clements, United States Consul at Messina, 
who is a most esteemed fellow-townsman, for a sketch of 
Taormina, translated from the Italian, which I have taken 
the liberty to condense. I have since had the pleasure of 
seeing a fine view of the ruins, painted by Mr. Clements ; 
and I am glad to learn that he contemplates a work illustrat- 
ing the beauties of Sicilian scenery, with historical sketches 
from sources not usually accessible to persons unacquainted 
with the language. 

Taormina was once a very rich and notable city ; and 
was called Taurominum, because it was built upon the 
summit of Mount Taurus. It was founded by Andromaches, 
father of the historian Timeos, in concert with the inhabitants 
of Naxos, after the tyrant Dionysius had destroyed the latter 
city. Taormina has been so often exposed to the vicissi 
tudes of war, and especially in the times of the Saracens, 
who in the year 893 razed it to the ground, that its pop- 
ulation, once most numerous, is now reduced to about 3000 
souls. Earthquakes, especially that of 1693, have likewise 
contributed to the fall of the city ; and it is probable that 
this state of ruin and depopulation will continue in conse- 
quence of the town of Giardini being since founded in a much 
more advantageous position for all the relations of commerce. 
It is easy to comprehend why fugitives from slavery or death 
should found a city upon a rock, almost inaccessible ; but it 
seems a marvel that in times of peace the inhabitants have 
not abandoned their aerial retreat, and descended to a more 
convenient place. The suburbs of Taormina contain many 
interesting antiquities, and the ruins of its theatre are in a 
position so picturesque that they are incomparably more strik- 
ing than any in Sicily. Of less importance among the anti- 
quities are the ruins of a cistern, of a gymnasium, a littlo 
temple and some tombs. 'The most notable of all the ruing, 



A GIU A THROUGH SICILY. 



however, is that of the theatre. It is regarded by the best 
j udges as one of the finest specimens of architecture for scenic 
effect in existence. From the position of the seats the specta- 
tors enjoyed a most imposing scene ; such in fact that no 
description or painting can give a just idea of it. 

It is a remarkable peculiarity in all the ancient theatres of 
Sicily that they conform entirely in their construction to the 
local circumstances by which they are surrounded, as at 
Segesta, Syracuse, Taormina and other places. This was 
done with a view to the sound of the voice, as well as to the 
scenic effect. The theatre of Taormina it is said was capa- 
ble of accommodating tAventy-hye thousand persons. It was 
subjected to some changes after its primitive construction, 
under the Greeks whose work it was, as also under the Ro- 
mans who repaired and embellished it. The entire edifice 
was surrounded by galleries of brick, and niches are still seen 



TAORMINA. 



79 



in which statues were placed. Many columns of granite and 
marble, still remain upon the walls, but not in their original 
places. Some of the finest of the architectural ornaments, 
have been carried away in times of ignorance by the inhab- 
itants, who used them as material for building. 

The sketch on the preceding page hastily taken on the spot, 
represents the amphitheatre and a portion of the main edifice. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE BREACH. 

On our arrival in Messina we lost no time in securing the 
best rooms at the Yittoria for Doctor Mendoza and lady ; and 
it was a source of great pleasure to behold him when he came 
down to the dinner-table, with the Madam on his arm. He 
was shaved and oiled to the extremest point of nicety ; his 
brows were unclouded for the first time within a week ; he 
smiled pleasantly over his soup, and discoursed eloquently of 
the hotels at St. Petersburg over his salad and salmis. The 
Madam was charmed ; she was radiant with smiles ; she 
never stopped looking with admiration at her husband, and 
evidently thought he was rather the handsomest man in the 
world, when the dust of travel was rubbed off his face. 

Next morning we set out, all bright and smiling, accompa- 
nied by Mr. Clements, to explore the city of Messina. There 
is not much in it to attract attention, but what there is we 
ferreted out with uncommon ingenuity. 

The foundation of Messina (according to a translation from 
the Italian) extends to times so remote that the precise epoch 
is not known. It once boasted many precious monuments, 
among which mention is made of a splendid temple of Nep- 
tune, and another of Hercules. There was also the Palace 
of Cajo Ejo, from which was taken the celebrated statue of 
Cupid made by Praxiteles ; but the many sieges sustained by 
this city and the frequent earthquakes by which it has been 
desolated, have not left any vestiges of its ancient edifices. 
The population of Messina was once very numerous ; in 1575 
the plague destroyed 65,000 persons, and civil wars and 
other calamities have since reduced it to a mere remnant 



THE BREACH. 



6 i 



AX present the entire population, including the suburbs, 
amounts to about 90,000 souls. The greater part of the 
town is new, having been entirely rebuilt since the famous 
earthquake of 1783. 

There is so little to be seen in Messina that we got through 
on the day after our arrival. A few churches, convents, and 
old walls are about the only sights in the way of antiquities 
that the traveler is called upon to endure ; and, after seeing 
these, he may pass the time pleasantly enough rambling about 
the neighborhood, which is full of fine scenery, or lounging 
about the wharves, where he will enjoy something in the way 
of maritime life on shore. The position of the town is scarcely 
less picturesque than that of Palermo, and for all the evidences 
of progress and civilization I greatly preferred this neighbor- 
hood to any part of Sicily. 

On the occasion of a second visit to Messina I was accom- 
panied by an Irish major from India and an old English 
gentleman returning from the East, both fellow-passengers on 
the steamer from Malta, and very jovial and agreeable trav- 
eling acquaintances. We had but three hours on shore, the 
steamer having merely touched for passengers. It was, there- 
fore, on landing, a matter of consideration in what way we 
could spend our time most profitably. The Englishman 
was in favor of seeing the breach at the risk of every thing 
else .; the major of that happy and accommodating tempera- 
ment which renders a man capable of enjoying all things 
equally ; and I, having on a former occasion seen every thing 
in Messina except the breach, yielded, against an internal 
conviction that a hole in a wall is not an object of peculiar 
interest. But habitual martyrdom makes a man magnani- 
mous, and the old gentleman was bent upon seeing the 
breach ; he had set his heart upon it ; he had enlightened us 
upon the historical points, and the breach we must see. Nor 
would he have a guide, for he spoke French, and could ask 
the way. The major, too, spoke a foreign language ; it was 
Guzerat or Hindoo, and not likely to be very useful in the 
streets of Messina, but it might come in play ; and I prided 
myself on speaking Italian ; that is to say (between you and 



82 



A G1RA THROUGH SICILY. 



mygelf) ; a species of Italian formed chiefly of Arabic, French, 
Tuscan, Neapolitan, and English, but chiefly of English 
Italianized by copious additions of vowels at the end of every 
word. Yielding, however, to the superior zeal of our English 
friend, Mr. Pipkins, we kept modestly in the rear, while he 
took the middle of the main street, and kept a sharp lookout 
for any intelligent-looking man that had the appearance of 
understanding French. " Parlez vous Frangais, monsieur" 
said Pipkins to the very first man he met. " Nein /" replied 
the man, " sprechen Sie Deutsch ?" " Talk to him in Hindoo," 
said Mr. Pipkins. The major addressed him accordingly in 
Hindoo. " Nicht," said the man. "Maybe he understands 
Italian," suggested the major. "Parle ItalianaV said I, 
" Si, signor, un poco." " Dove il breecha in the Muro," said 
I, going to the full extent of my Italian. The man looked 
puzzled, but, not wishing to appear ignorant, addressed me in 
such a complicated mixture of Grerman and Sicilian that I had 
to stop him at length. " Si, si, grazia" " What does he 
say?" inquired Mr. Pipkins. "I think he says the wall is 
somewhere outside the city ; but he speaks abominable 
Italian." " Humph ! never mind ; here's a gentleman that 
speaks French, I'm certain. Monsieur ! I say, monsieur !" 
(calling to a stiff-looking man just passing), " Parlez vous 
Franpais, monsieur V" " No, signor ; Italiana" Upon this 
hint I spake Italian, as before. The stiff man unbent him- 
self, and politely conducted us round the corner, where he 
showed us the ancient chtoch ; and bidding us adieu, went 
his way with the same grave and studied aspect. I shall 
never forget the look of mingled doubt and disappointment 
with which my venerable English friend surveyed me. " Did 
you ask him for a church ?" <c No, I asked him for the wall 
with the breach in it." From that moment, I believe Mr. 
Pipkins suspected me of bad Italian. Disappointment, how- 
ever, only added to his zeal. Pushing on with a determined 
step, he led the way through innumerable streets, till at 
length we reached an open piazza, where we halted close by 
a hack stand to gain breath and take an observation Here 
we were soon surrounded by such an eager gang of vetturini, 



THE BREACH. 



83 



in consequence of an indiscreet question in Hindoo by the 
major, that we had to work ourselves out of the crowd by 
main force. "Leave it all to me," said our English friend, 
61 I'll find somebody presently who speaks French. Ha ! that 
man has a French look. I say, monsieur, monsieur !" The 
man stopped. " Parlez vous Franpais, inonsieurV " Oui, 
monsieur" " I told you so," said our friend, turning to us 
triumphantly ; "see what perseverance will do ;" and then 
he propounded a series of questions to the strange gentleman 
concerning the location of the wall, interrupted at every 
pause by " Oui, monsieur, oui, oui" " Now, sir, can you tell 
us where it is? (still in French). What language the indi- 
vidual addressed spoke in reply it would be impossible to say ; 
but it was brief and to the point, for he immediately con- 
ducted us round another corner and showed us the diligence 
office, after which he touched his hat politely, and walked on. 
Mr. Pipkins regarded the sign upon the diligence office with 
ineffable disgust, and then casting- a ferocious look after the 
stranger, struck his stick heavily upon the pavement, and said : 
"Damme, if that's French ! He doesn't understand the lan- 
guage !" For some time previously I had observed a sus- 
picious-looking fellow dodging from corner to corner in our 
rear, who now came up touching his hat respectfully. " Gem- 
men," said he, "me speakee Inglees. What you want?" 
Our friend explained in full, evidently much relieved at this 
sudden accession to his cause. " Yes, yes, me know," replied 
the man. " Come on." We followed with a good will, cer- 
tain that our troubles were at last at an end ; and really I 
began to feel quite interested in the wall from the sheer force 
of disappointment. We had proceeded some distance through 
a labyrinth of streets, when Mr. Pipkins, who was engaged in 
a hopeless attempt to extract additional information out of 
the guide concerning the wall, stopped short, and indignantly 
uttered these words : " You infernal rascal, that's not what 
we want !" Now, the full force of this violent language was 
of course lost upon the major and myself. The only words 
we overheard were — "just seventeen" — " arrived from Paris 
yesterday," which of course left us in a most painful state of 



84 



A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 



mystery ; nor could we prevail upon Mr. Pipkins to give us 
the least satisfaction on the subject. He merely turned back, 
muttering something about a deplorable state of morals ; and 
upon consulting his watch found that it was about time to go 
on board the steamer. 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



CHAPTER XL 

ATHENS. 

We left Messina on the afternoon of the 15th of October, 
and on the following morning were in sight of the Island of 
Malta. By noon we were at anchor in the harbor of Valetta, 
It was really refreshing to see something like cleanliness and 
civilization once more. The houses of Yaletta, with their 
light cheerful coloring., their varieties of elevation, their pleas- 
ant verandas and balconies, are the neatest specimens imag- 
inable of toy-work on a large scale ; and the streets are the 
very queerest streets conceivable, with their uprisings and 
downfallings, their steps of stairs, their crowds of darkly hood- 
ed women and noisy men, and the strange mixture of races 
and languages, Europeanism, Orientalism, and Barbarism, 
scents and sounds, and all the varieties of life that abound in 
them. But British ascendency is apparent at the first glance 
All one need do, after casting an eye upon the endless rows 
of cannon peeping from the fortifications, is to look at the 
banded and gilded officers strutting about every where, the 
red-coated guards armed to the teeth, and stationed at every 
gateway and public building, the never-ending drill of com- 
panies in the public squares, the bristling armories, the thea- 
tres, porter-houses, billiard saloons, club-houses, and army- 
tailor shops ; and above all, at the places of worship, where the 
teachings of the Gospel are expounded, and peace and good 
will enjoined toward all mankind — to be convinced that he 
is once more among a progressive and enlightened people. 

Doctor Mendoza and the Madam, who were on the same 
steamer from Messina, were charmed with the hotels of 



86 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Valetta. I saw nothing of this party in my rambles about 
the streets ; but afterward was informed by the Doctor that 
they were fatigued by the voyage, and had spent the time in 
their hotel, which was very comfortable ; the wines were 
excellent; the Madam w r as " indispose ;" the mutton uncom- 
monly fat and tender ; and altogether they were tres contents 
to repose awhile after the perils and hardships of the voyage. 

I took passage in the French steamer for the Pirseus. The 
sea was rough and the weather very unpleasant. Compelled 
as I was, in all my traveling, to take the cheapest places, 
ranging from deck-passages up to the second cabin, I did not 
discover until we were in sight of Greece that my friends Dr. 
Mendoza and the Madam were on board the steamer with 
me again. They had eventually, upon consultation with the 
Portuguese Consul, as to the hotels, concluded to pursue their 
travels to the East. The purse of the Doctor was well lined, 
and of course he spared no pains in making himself and the 
Madam comfortable. Unlike most people with full purses, 
they were generous to a fault ; indeed, I was often forced to 
interfere between the Doctor and his guides in order to pre- 
vent him from being cheated. If there was any one thing 
that troubled this amiable couple, it was the dreadful and 
unheard-of hardships which they supposed I must encounter 
in my second and thh^-class passages. Repeatedly melted 
by the pictures of starvation and desolation which they con- 
jured up in my behalf (partly because I carried no baggage, 
and partly no doubt on account of my being naturally of a 
meagre habit) the Doctor ottered me the use of a hundred 
pounds, payable at any convenient point in the world, or at 
any date however remote ; and I never could make him un- 
derstand the philosophy of traveling on the principle of Rough 
and Tumble ; studying bodily deprivations, like Socrates and 
other renowned characters, as a practical science ; enjoying 
the luxuries of hardship in European travel by comparison 
with past experience in flat-boats on the Mississippi, whalers 
off Madagascar, and bashing it in California ; nor could he 
see how any reasonable man could take pride in such a way 
$f traveling, even when that pride was based upon necessity. 



ATHENS. 



87 



After a dreary passage of two days and a half from Malta 
we reached the Piraeus, or sea-port town of Athens. The 
first thing that struck me upon landing was the absolute 
absurdity of being surrounded by a whole legion of boatmen, 
porters, and hack-drivers in petticoats. Their very earnest- 
ness in gesticulating for fees and baggage and a thousand 
other things, partly in Greek and partly broken English, 
while they sauntered about in all the pomp of mustaches, 
whips, and petticoats, was the most irresistibly ludicrous sight 
I had seen for many a day. 

We took a large hack-man, with a splendid mustache, and 
an uncommonly fine pair of legs, petticoated in the most im- 
posing style, who drove us through seas of dust, till we reach- 
ed the half-way house. There we had to stop for sweetmeats, 
because it was the custom for all people of quality upon their 
first visit to Athens to stop at that place for that purpose. 
Why, I don't know ; unless that a trifle of change might be 
divided between the hack-driver and his friend who keeps the 
establishment. 

The distance from the PirsBus is about seven miles ; but 
the road being covered with a thick bed of dust which cov- 
ered up the hack, we saw nothing of the Acropolis or other 
ruins till we were within a mile or two of the place. 

On our arrival in Athens, my Portuguese friends went to 
the " Orient." It was a new hotel, and was recommended in 
the guide book as the best in the city. The " Angleterre" was 
very good ; perhaps a little larger than the Orient, but it was 
not mentioned so favorably in Doctor Mendoza's book. Prob- 
ably the author had fallen out with the proprietor on account 
of an indifferent beef-steak ; for I rather incline to the opinion 
that the Angleterre is a better hotel than the Orient. How- 
ever, neither of them suited my limited means ; and I was 
reluctantly forced to leave my friends at the Orient, and go 
in search of the worst hotel in the place. Having no baggage 
except what I carried on my back in the shape of a knap- 
sack principally filled with leaves and small pieces of various 
ruins for my friends at home, I was not troubled about por- 
ters. I soon found a very indifferent-looking hotel. It wai 



88 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



the Hotel de Vienne. If there be any worse in Athens, it 
must be very bad indeed. The price for a small room was 
three francs a day, and no reduction made for vermin. I had 
limited myself to four, all expenses of living included ; and 
the consequence was that while I remained in Athens, being 
obliged to pay five cents out of the franc for domestic service 
my means of support were reduced to fifteen cents a day. I 
breakfasted generally on bread and grapes, dined on grapes 
and bread, and supped on bread and grapes again. It agreed 
with me wonderfully. Never in my life did I feel stronger, 
or more capable of enduring fatigue. I had some letters of 
introduction to present on the day after our arrival ; and it 
was not until the following morning that I had the pleasure 
of meeting my friend Doctor Mendoza. He shook hands with 
me very cordially, and said he liked Athens ; he thought he 
would stay some time ; the Orient was a very good hotel ; he 
was very comfortable at the Orient ; he had seen the Acropolis., 
the temple of Theseus, and some few other ruins, but the 
Orient was the best thing he had found in Athens ; the din- 
ners were excellent ; he liked the way the dinners were cook- 
ed and served up; the Madam was "indispose;" and alto- 
gether he thought he would repose for a week or two at the 
Orient, as it was " imposs" to find such comfortable quarters 
on board a steamer. 

Having studiously avoided, up to the present writing, all 
flights of fancy on the subject of the classics, I shall endeavor 
to suppress the inspiration derived from a ramble on the 
Acropolis. It is not for an unpretending General in the Bob- 
tail Militia to attempt a description of the glorious old Par- 
thenon, the ruined temples, the columns and cornices that 
lie broken and scattered upon that classic spot, the view of 
naked and desolate hills, with all their glowing associations, 
wherever the eye is cast ; or to indulge in poetic reflections 
upon the fall of Greece from its Attic eminence to its present 
state of barbarism. A few practical facts, however, from 
recollection, may be of interest to the reader. The Acropolis 
is a rock or pile of rocks, some three or four hundred feet in 
height, crowned with the ruins of the principal temples of 



ATHENS. 



80 



ancient Athens, which are encircled by a wall. It is situated 
at the edge of the modern town, toward the interior ; is as- 
cended by a good pathway to the principal entrance, where 
a guard receives tickets of admission, or pay, or something, 
and takes down the name of the visitor, in order that he (the 
visitor) may be found out in case he pockets a temple or a 
piece of one. On the whole, the Acropolis is a very respect- 
able mass of ruins, besides being conveniently situated for a 
general view of the country. There are shops in Athens 
where French lithographs of the principal ruins throughout 
Greece may be had in every variety of size, so that the tour- 
ist, who has but little time to spare in Athens, may carry 
them all home secretly, and describe the details in full to his 
friends, as if he had carefully studied the original ruins. By 
a little tact and a glance now and then at the guide-book, 
aided by a good memory, the most ignorant person is enabled 
in that way to puzzle, confound, and completely triumph 
over the most learned professor in the universities — provided 
the professor has not acquired his fame in the same manner. 
I should be sorry to have.it supposed that this is intended as 
irreverence toward the ancients, or contempt for the learning 
of the moderns ; but if it be taken in that light, I can only 
say that one who attempts to think with his own brains and 
see with his own eyes (both of which may be defective) is 
apt, unintentionally, to run against the prejudices of his fel- 
low-creatures, and should rather be pitied for his folly than 
censured for his presumption. Besides, the classical tourist 
and learned professor, who have striven so hard to enlighten 
the world in regard to ancient times, should console them- 
selves with the reflection that — 

"When with, much pains their boasted learning's got, 
'Tis an affront to those who have it not." 

Modern Athens is a small town, composed chiefly of frame 
houses. The population is about seventeen thousand, prin- 
cipally degenerate Greeks. A considerable number of Ital- 
ians, French, Germans, Russians, and some few English 
families, are included in this estimate. The streets are ram- 
bling and irregular, narrow and wide by turns, dusty or 



90 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



muddy according to the season, abounding in streams of filth 
from the house-doors, and over-run with miserable dogs, as in 
most of the cities of the East. In the poorer parts of the 
town, the houses are mere hovels of mud ; the filth is such 
as to render it difficult even to pass through ; and the in- 
habitants are in the most wretched condition. The bazaar 
or market-place is perhaps the most pleasant place of resort 
for the stranger who wishes to study the manners and cos- 
tumes. Here all the country people come with their mules 
and packs of produce, and here are gayly-dressed idlers loung- 
ing about, in all the glory of silks, and sashes, and swinging 
petticoats. The " shaggy capote," referred to by Byron, is 
seen on all sides, and shaggy enough it is, being made of 
sheep-skins, and dirty enough too, in all conscience ; for the 
country Greeks (town Greeks are above shaggy capotes) live 
in their sheep-skins as they do in their own skins, neither of 
which they are in the habit of washing more than once or 
twice in a life-time. In all their rags, however, and in all 
their filthiness, these degenerate sons of glory are fine-looking 
fellows, with bold, prominent features, eagle eyes, and com- 
manding forms. Some of the handsomest men I ever saw 
were Greeks, dressed in the Albanian costume. The free, 
graceful bearing, the manly stride, the undaunted air of self- 
reliance, the expression of energy and intelligence in every 
feature, struck me as something admirable. It is a little re- 
markable that even the lowest classes of the men are hand- 
some, yet not one in a thousand of the women even comely 
in form or feature— at least of such as are seen in ordinary 
places of public resort. 

On a Sunday afternoon, during my stay in Athens, I went 
to see the king and queen — not to call upon them personally 
at their palace, because I had heard of a difficulty that had 
originated in a matter of etiquette between a party of Ameri- 
cans and the royal party, not long before, and I was resolved 
to keep clear of trouble by seeing them in public. There 
was an exhibition of rope-dancers in the open space near the 
Hotel d'Angleterre. At an early hour the place was crowded 
with spectators — Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, English, 



ATHENS. 



91 



and Americans. The Greek women did not seem to me at 
all remarkable for beauty. In the whole crowd of several 
hundreds, I saw but three or four passably pretty faces : and 
they owed more, perhaps, to fine suits of hair, dark eyes, and 
rich head-dresses, than to any thing really striking in their 
features. The ordinary classes of Greek women to be seen 
about the streets are about the most uncouth and miserable- 
looking beings one meets any where in this part of the world. 
I looked in vain for the Maid of Athens. She lives at the 
Pirseus, and I thought it likely she might be in the crowd. 
Perhaps I saw her ; if so, however, I did not recognize her 
from Byron's description. There was no Greek maiden pres- 
ent on that occasion, from whom any man of ordinary taste 
might not part without an application for the return of his 
heart. The young German girl who walked on the rope 
from the ground up to the fourth-story window of a house, 
took a much stronger hold upon my affections than any of the 
Maids of Athens. She was a beautiful little blonde, radiant 
with cheap jewelry and gauze : she waved her wand majest- 
ically ; smiled triumphantly ; twirled her pretty legs provok- 
ingly ; and bowed to the unanimous applause of the specta- 
tors bewitchingly. Then there were splendid-looking fellows 
in flesh-colored hose, who came out and rode in a most ex- 
travagant manner upon the tight-rope ; turning heels over 
head, and head over heels again ; and shaking their locks 
when they bowed, in a way that must have won a great 
many hearts from the Greek maidens before they parted. 

But my business is not with rope-dancers. Hang the rope- 
dancers ! What did I care about such buffoonery ! I could 
see rope-dancers enough at home ; but it was not every day 
I could see a live king and queen. 

There was a buzz in the crowd ; a suppressed hum of 
voices ; a rattling of swords and guns ; a clattering of horses' 
hoofs ; I knew by instinct that the king and queen were 
coming. By Jove ! there they came sure enough, prancing 
along gallantly on a pair of spirited steeds, side-ways, and 
front- ways, and every possible way, right up between the two 
files of soldiers, opposite to where I stood, and there they 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



halted, as if to enjoy the general sensation. I was perhaps 
the most enthusiastic person in the whole crowd. The prob- 
ability is that I would have shouted, God save the King ! — 
God save the Q,ueen ! had I not been apprehensive that the 
soldiers might mistake my meaning, and run me through the 
body for an attempt to create a revolution. As it was, I 
pressed my way through the crowd to the very first rank, 
and, in my zeal for royalty, displaced two officers who were 
standing before me, and who, upon seeing that I was a for- 
eigner, looked daggers at me, in Greek. 

King Otho was dressed in the Greek costume, The cos- 
tume looked well enough, but the king looked rather insig- 
nificant for a king. I expected to see a man seven feet high 
at least, with a head as big as a five gallon keg, crowned 
with diamonds, and the nose and eyes like those of an eagle ; 
but -King Otho is rather a small man, with a small head and 
face, and rather a small show of character in the expression 
of his countenance. He is a pale, ugly little man, with dark 
eyes, dark hair, a dark mustache, and a very meagre face. 
To me he looked uncommonly unwholesome in mind and 
body. His dress was rich, but not more striking than many 
of the Greek costumes in the crowd. I thought he wore it 
to show his subjects that he was Greek to the back-bone— at 
least to the outside of the back-bone. There is not much 
Greek inside of him, according to all I could glean from the 
people of Athens, or much love for the Greek people ; and for 
this reason, perhaps, he puts on as much Greek outside as he 
conveniently can. 

The queen was dressed in a plain riding-habit, with a plain 
black riding-cap, instead of a golden crown, as I expected to 
see. She is a buxom young woman, of about thirty, of light 
complexion, blue eyes, full face, rather plain in features, but 
lively and good-humored looking. In Washington City, which 
I have the honor to represent, she might pass for the daugh- 
ter of a neighboring farmer, more accustomed to jumping 
fences and hunting up the cows than to the atmosphere of 
royalty. However, I like Glueen Otho, and for this reason 1 
feel disposed to compliment her by the comparison. God 



ATHENS. 



9 j 



bless Q,ueen Otho ! She was born for better things ; she 
might have been the life and soul of some happy family cir- 
cle ; she looks ready for a laugh or a romp even now, with 
all the cares of royalty upon her mind. Besides, how could 
I help liking her when she smiled at me ? she, Queen Otho, 
of Greece, smiled at me, reader ; not that I hold myself at all 
cheap, but it is no every-day matter to be smiled at by a 
queen. I saw her do it ; I smiled back again ; she saw me 
smile ; then she stopped smiling, and I stopped smiling. 
When I stopped smiling, Q,ueen Otho smiled. I liked that 
in her ; it showed delicacy of feeling ; it showed that she ap- 
preciated delicacy of feeling on my part ; it was intended as 
a reward for my forbearance in not continuing to smile when 
she stopped smiling. Consequently, when she smiled again, 
I smiled likewise, to show her that I understood it ; upon 
which she quickly stopped smiling again, and turned away 
her face ; and I also stopped at the same time, and turned 
away my face ; I turned it toward the king. The king 
frowned at me. Otho, King of Greece, had the audacity to 
frown at me, a General in the Bobtail Militia ! My repub- 
lican blood was up in a moment. I frowned at Otho, King 
of Greece. He saw me frown ; he saw the danger that might 
result from it ; he stopped frowning ; and when I perceived 
that I had frowned him down, I also stopped frowning. King 
Otho was so little pleased at being frowned down in this way 
that as soon as I had stopped frowning, he frowned again. 
Of course I returned the frown in the most emphatic manner. 
The queen, perceiving that King Otho and myself were frown- 
ing at each other, began to smile ; in fact she fully smiled. 
I understood her ; I returned her smile. We both smiled to- 
gether. King Otho saw that we understood one another ; 
that we did our smiling together ; that consequences unpleas- 
ant to himself might ensue. Therefore he frowned more 
darkly than ever ; and I, knowing that jealousy was the 
cause, was determined to show him that I was not the sort 
of person to be intimidated by a frown. Hence I frowned 
back again. King Otho quickly stopped frowning, the queen 
at the same time stopped smiling ; and I, having no further 



94 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



cause either to smile or frown, turned away and looked at the 
rope-dancers. 

Up to this date, I had always supposed that there was not 
in my nature the slightest leaning toward royalty ; that I was 
republican to the heart's core. But I now began to doubt it. 
I felt a most unmistakable leaning toward royalty. To be 
noticed in this manner by a real king and queen, was flatter- 
ing to my feelings. Had any President of the United States 
frowned at me, I should have simply asked him what he 
meant ; had the lady of any President of the United States 
smiled at me, I should have thought nothing more of it than 
that she had mistaken me for some acquaintance ; but to be 
smiled and frowned at by royal blood, was something calcu- 
lated to produce novel and agreeable sensations. There were 
thoughts within, which I hardly dared to own even to my- 
self — thoughts of high offices which might be had by proper 
influence, if we had a king and queen in America. It was 
natural to suppose that it must be gratifying to the ambition 
of any man to be made Prime Comptroller of the Kitchen ; 
Chief Examiner of the Bed-chambers, Lord High Admiral of 
the Duck-ponds ; Commander-in-chief of the Royal Nurses, oi 
General Superintendent of the Cake Department, and Feeder- 
in-chief of Sugar-candy to the Royal Babies ; with a salary oi 
forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, and the privilege of occa- 
sionally beholding in private life the royal couple. In this 
train of thought I called to mind a great many of my lady- 
friends (some traveling on the Continent, and some at home), 
whose chief ambition I strongly suspect is, to be associated in 
some way with royalty. There might be some little difficulty 
at first in regard to providing titles sufficiently long and high- 
sounding, but I am certain there would be no difficulty in pick- 
ing out of the first ranks in Boston, New York, and elsewhere, 
Ladies of the Royal Bed-chamber, Train-bearers to her Ma- 
jesty, Holders of her Majesty's Combs and Brushes ; High 
Powderers-in-chief of her Majesty's Face and Elbows ; and 
Lady High-washers of her Majesty's Babies — especially when 
there would be brilliant prospects of matrimonial alliances 
with the Grand Comptroller of the Kitchen, Lord High Ad- 



ATHENS. 



95 



mirals of the Duck ponds, Knights of the Bed-chamber, and 
other distinguished men of rank. 

Men did I say ? Men ? Pardon the slander ! It was un 
intentional. I mean no disrespect to my fellow-creatures 
of the male sex ; the word is used in a conventional sense. 
There is, however, in certain countries where royalty exists, 
a class of creatures who consider it no degradation to occupy 
positions of this kind ; and there is in our own country a class 
so slavish in their devotion to rank and station, that they are 
ever ready to worship such creatures — to bend the knee before 
the titled minions of royalty. It may be said that these titles 
are nominal. Does that make them the less degrading ? He 
who would suffer himself to be called the Prince of Flunkeys, 
or the High-chief of Sneaks, and deliberately accept the title 
as merely nominal, is a flunkey or a sneak at heart, whether 
he be paid in money for the indignity, or rewarded with im- 
aginary honors ; and he who would accept the title of a base- 
born menial, not from necessity but from choice, is more de- 
spicable than the basest of menials ; he is one, who, in the 
language of Junius, could never aspire to hatred, never rise 
above contempt : to claim for such a creature any attribute 
of manliness, is to desecrate God's own image in which man 
is made. 

But really, I had almost forgotten in the struggle between 
my growing passion for royalty and the prejudices of educa- 
tion in favor of democracy, the high hopes of preferment sug- 
gested by the attentions of King Otho and his amiable spouse. 
The fact is, my zeal on both sides has been productive of some 
slight discrepancy. I can only account for it in this way : 
that we tourists who visit the old world, have our share of 
that natural weakness which causes the mass of mankind to 
sacrifice principle where vanity and self-importance are con- 
cerned. We like to astonish our untraveled brethren at home 
by boasting of our intimacy with people of rank in Europe ; 
we scorn titles as a matter of principle, and worship them 
as a matter of personal ambition. We fashionable people 
who travel, as well as some of us who don't travel, are just 
as prone to aspire to what we condemn in others, as th" 



96 



A CKUSADE IN THE EAST. 



weakest ; just as rabid in the improper use of power when 
we obtain it, as the most despotic. The frailties of human 
nature abound under every form of government ; the princi- 
ples of right exist every where, and are every where sustained 
or abused, according to the interests which they involve ; 
hence we should be careful that the mote be not in our own 
eye, before we point to it in the eyes of others. There are 
principles of liberty and of right implanted in us by the Deity ; 
the most enlightened of mankind have ever recognized them 
as the only true basis of government, the only enduring found- 
ation of human happiness ; let us, therefore, while we con- 
demn the errors and follies of others, profit by the condition 
to which we see them reduced, and aspire to be the most 
consistent as well as the freest and most liberal of nations. 

Doctor Mendoza and the Madam having seen all that was 
to be seen in Athens, invited me to join them in an excursion 
down to Eleusis, which I very gladly did, inasmuch as it en- 
abled me to enjoy their society, and at the same time see some- 
thing of country life in Greece. We hired the only guide that 
happened to be unemployed at the time — a lean ill-looking 
fellow, whose expression of countenance gave us but little 
promise of being enlightened by his intellectual researches. 
There was no help for it, however ; and having employed 
the best carriage the place afforded, and moreover provided 
ourselves with some cold chicken and bread from the Orient, 
we set out at an early hour, and were soon rolling along- 
over the dusty road toward Eleusis. A short distance from 
Athens we came to the Academical Groves, where we de- 
scended to see the sights. The only sights we saw were an 
old villa, in a very dilapidated state ; a few dust-covered trees 
and grape-vines of modern growth, some fine bunches of 
grapes ; a ditch of water that one could jump over with ease, 
3alled the river Ilissus, and some ragged and dirty Greeks 
lying on their backs in the shade — descendants probably of 
the ancient philosophers. 

Some miles farther on, we came to a sort of way-side 
inn, near the Convent of Daphne, where the Doctor thought 
it expedient to stop for refreshments; " because," said he, 



ATHENS. 



97 



" de Madam is indispose : 'tis imposs to proceed without some 
wine." 

While my friends were sipping their wine and " reposing" 
after the fatigues of the " voyage," I stepped into the adjoin- 
ing yard and made a sketch of the old Convent, which may 




CONVENT NEAR ATHENS 



be seen here on a small scale, just as it appeared to me on a 
large scale, except that it looks rather better in print, and 
leaves more room for exercise of the imagination. It is built 
upon the ruins of the temple of Apollo, which may account 
for the fact that it is really a very beautiful piece of Byzan- 
tine architecture. The priests were all asleep or dead. I 
neither saw nor heard any thing of them. 

Not far beyond the old Convent we came to a pass with 
a rugged bluff on the right, upon which were some ancient in- 
scriptions. Our dragoman stopped the carriage, and in a very 
imposing manner called our attention to the fact that we 
were now at a most interesting point in our journey. Doctor 
Mendoza never suffered any thing mentioned in the guide- 
book to escape his attention ; but unfortunately he had for- 
gotten his book in Athens, and was reduced to the necessity 
of depending solely upon the classical attainments of our 
dragoman. 

" Wat you call dis place ?" said he ; for the dragoman spoke 

E 



98 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



nothing but English, in addition to his native language, and 
Doctor Mendoza was not very proficient in either tongue : 
" Wat hiss de name of dis place?" 

" Urn call um-er-r-a — e-r-r-a ; wat you say, sare?" 

"Wat hiss de name?" 

" Oh, de name ; me know de name ; me tell you by'm by. 
Dis great place, shentlemans ; much great ting happen here 
in ancient time ; grand ting happen here. Dey stop here ; 
much grand feast ; plenty people ; Oh, great ting happen 
here." 

" But wat hiss it ? AY at gran ting — wat gran feast you 
call her?" 

" She call 'urn feast, wat de plenty people have wen dey 
come dis way ; Oh, much fine time ! Dere's de mark, shen- 
tlemans ; on de rock dere you see de mark." 

Doctor Mendoza looked at the rock, but could make no- 
thing of the mark. Evidently it was all Greek to him, for 
it perplexed and irritated him exceedingly. 

" By dam ! you no conosce nienta ! Mal-a-detta ! wat you 
call herself ? heh ? you call herself dragoman? One multo 
buono dragoman she be! Sacr-r-r-r diabolo!" 

" Yes, shentlemans; me dragoman; me plenty recommend- 
ation; me know more all dragomans in Atens! All Amer- 
ican shentlemans say me good dragoman ; all English shen- 
tlemans say me good dragoman; every body say me good 
dragoman." 

" Den wat for you no conosce de name of dis place ?" 

" De name? Oh de name sare? yes sare: me know de 
name well as any body. De name's er-r-ra — er-r-ra ; you 
know dis de place, shentlemans, were de plenty peoples come 
for de gran ting; much grand feast. Dat's de name; same 
name wot you find in de book, yes sare. Me best dragoman 
in Atens ; all de shentlemans say me de best. Me know de 
name all de place." 

" Andate !" roared the Portuguese, turning furiously to the 
driver; ' ; Tis imposs to understan dat, she no speak Inglees!" 
and away we rolled over the road, as fast as two skeletons of 
horses could drag us. Presently the carriage stopped again. 



ATHENS. 



and the dragoman informed us that we had arrived at another 
important point. 

"Dere, shentlemans, you see de water; much sheep come 
dere in old time ; two tousan sheep ?" 

"Wat?" cried the Portuguese, "'dat de bay of Salamis ? 
Dat de place were Xerxes come wid two million sheep." 

" Yes sare ; dat de same place, sare ; de sheep all fight de 
G-reek mans dere ; de Greek mans kill all the sheep and sink 
'em in de water. Greek very brave mans ; kill two hundred 
sheep dere. Yes sare." 

" Wat dey do wid all de dead mans ?" 

" Oh, dey bury all the dead mans down dere were you see 
de tombs. Yes sare. De Greek mans dere, and de oder mans 
wot come in the sheep be dere in that oder place wot you 
see. Yes sare. Oh, me know all de ting — me no tell lie ; 
me good dragoman." 

"Poh! Tis imposs to comprehen 'Twill be necess to 
to have de book," said the Doctor in great disgust ; : 'de sheep 
be buried in de tombs, and de Greek mans be buried in de 
sheep — imposs ! imposs ! Andate, diabolo !" 

So the carriage rolled on again, not exactly in the direction 
indicated by the Doctor, but certainly to a place that appeared 
to have no great local advantages over the residence of the 
dark gentleman referred to. It was the far-famed city of 
Eleusis — a most abominable collection of pigsties, inhabited by 
filthy Greeks. From the time of our departure from Athens. 
I had seen no inhabitants on the roadside at all superior i» 
point of civilization, either in their way of living or general 
appearance, to the Indians of California — certainly none that 
were not in an absolute state of barbarism. 

We ascended the hill of Eleusis, and stood upon the Acropolis. 
The utter desolation of the scene all around presented a 
striking and melancholy picture of the fall of Greece. No- 
thing could exceed the weird and impressive grandeur of the 
scenery. All was ruin, barrenness and decay, wherever we 
looked ; not a spot of verdure within the vast amphitheatre 
of mountains.; the whole face of the country arid and blasted ; 
all still, dreary, and deathlike — all wrapt in hopeless desolation. 



100 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Our return to Athens was devoid of incident. Doc 
Mendoza and the Madam were delighted to get back to is > 
Orient. The Madam was "indispose;" and the doctor de- 
clared that without dinner it was " imposs to exiss." 

I spent the evening at the residence of Mr. Hill the Ameri- 
can Missionary. JSTo American who has visited Athens and 
enjoyed the acquaintance of this gentleman, can feel other 
than the highest sentiments of esteem and admiration for his 
character and talents, and a national pride in his successful 
dissemination of knowledge and of the true principles of Chris- 
tianity among the rising generation of Greeks. His school is 
well attended by the most intelligent classes of Greek chil- 
dren ; who by the admirable manner in which it is conducted 
soon become capable of teaching what they have learned 
themselves ; and in this way the cause of education and 
Christianity is making rapid progress. Some of my most 
agreeable recollections of Athens are associated with the few 
brief hours spent in the society of Mr. Hill and his accom- 
plished family. 

Bidding good-by to my Portuguese friends, who had made 
up their minds to " repose" a while at the Orient after the 
fatigues of the " voyage" to Eleusis, I looked for the last time 
at the glorious Acropolis, shook from my feet the dust of 
Greece, which is living Greece no more, and departed on my 
journey eastward- 



CHAPTER XII. 



SYR A. 



I took passage in the Austrian steamer from the Piraeus to 
Syra. The decks were crowded with G-reek, Italian, and 
French merchants, and a fair show of English tourists, on their 
way to the various ports of the Levant. I was a good deal 
surprised upon getting into conversation with a Greek to hear 
him quote the "Isles of G-reece" from beginning to end ; and 
still more surprised to find that he was the redoubtable Pro- 
fessor Castanis of rhetorical memory, whom I had heard lec- 
ture fifteen years before in Louisville, Kentucky. He carried 
a book in his hand, written by himself, containing his portrait 
in full Greek costume ; so being both in the scribbling line, 
and somewhat known to each other, and moreover in the same 
reduced circumstances, we were very good friends and went 
to a very bad hotel in Syra, kept by a Greek, where we got 
exceedingly small and rather cheap accommodations. I did 
not remain long there, however ; for having a letter of intro- 
duction from Mr. Hill to Evangelides, the American Vice 
Consul, he provided me with much better quarters in his own 
house, contrary to every assurance on my part that I was 
very comfortable at the Greek hotel. Evangelides is not only 
the most hospitable, enthusiastic, and obliging consul imagin- 
able, but the very perfection of a Greek gentleman ; dashing, 
off-hand, and intelligent, with a touch of wild romance in his 
character that renders it a real pleasure to become acquainted 
with him. He speaks English uncommonly well, and is thor- 
oughly versed in all the Oriental languages. The history of 
Evangelides is a romance. His father was a EJepht, or mount- 
ain robber of which he is rather proud; for it is considered 



102 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



no disgrace to be a robber in Greece ; indeed, it is looked 
upon as a token of a daring and chivalrous spirit. The old 
gentleman carried on his operations by land and sea, much 
after the fashion of Conrad. Falling in love with the daugh- 
ter of a rich Greek merchant in one of the neighboring islands, 
he contrived to get her on board one of his feluccas, and carry 
her off to his own island, and secrete her in his rendezvous in 
the mountains. Of course she was moved by this extreme 
devotion and became his . Medora ; but unlike Medora she 
bore him a son, and that son was Evangelides. During the 
massacre of the Greeks by the Turks in 1822, they were both 
slain ; and Evangelides was left an orphan. He was taken 
to the United States in some American ship, where his his- 
tory excited much interest, and he was educated at one of 
the first colleges of Massachusetts. After fifteen years of 
collegiate life, he returned to Syra, where he established a 
school for the education of Greek children ; and soon after, 
finding his business prosperous, he got married to a lady of 
Syra. He now has a flourishing institution, filled with pupils 
from nearly every port in the Levant, is well oft, and holds 
the position of Vice Consul of the United States. 

Hermopolis, the sea-port town of Syra, is the principal 
commercial depot of Greece. Within the past ten years it has 
acquired considerable importance as a stopping-place for the 
various lines of steamers bound to and from the Levant ; and 
its trade and population have enjoyed a proportionate increase 
The harbor is safe and convenient ; the situation of the island 
central, and the inhabitants generally enterprising and intel- 
ligent, for this part of the world. One of the first things that 
strikes the attention of the traveler is the romantic position 
of the town, especially the Catholic portion of it back on the 
hill, which rises in the form of an hnmense pyramid. All 
around the environs, are seen innumerable windmills ; the 
houses along the wharves are remarkable for their fanciful 
shapes and gay coloring. The population of the entire island 
is about twenty- five thousand. 

To the classical tourist the fountain of the Xympha?, back of 
the town, is the most interesting relic of antiquity. I walked 



SYRA. 



out there on the afternoon of my arrival, in company with two 
English gentlemen. Nothing remains of the fountain, except 
the water, which it is but reasonable to suppose is of modern 
formation. The location perhaps is the same as it was in 
the time of the Nymphse, who, according to the Greek his- 
torians, were in the habit of bathing there. It is more than 
the Greeks themselves, who live in the vicinity, are in the 
habit of doing at the*present date — if one may judge by their 
appearance. While we were looking for some more portable 
relic of antiquity than the water, and enjoying the pleasure 
of being stared at by some scores of ragged women and chil- 
dren, who were waiting for their pitchers to get filled, a very 
little old man, with a thin and withered face, and a very 
sharp pair of eyes, came out through a doorway in the wall 
near the fountain ; and making a profound bow to us all, said 
m English, or something intended for English, that he was 
the proprietor of that establishment ; it was his own property, 
and he hoped we would make ourselves at home, and look 
at it as long as we pleased. He was always happy to meet 
the countrymen of Melor Beeron, because Melor Beeron and 
himself were intimate friends. They had traveled together 
through Greece ; had fought together in the wars against the 
Turks ; had sailed together among the Greek islands ; had 
lived and loved together in Athens ; in short for many years 
they were inseparable. He was Melor Beeron's friend. Me- 
lor Beeron was his friend. He was Melor Beeron's drago- 
man, guide, interpreter, courier, and valet, as occasion re- 
quired ; and Melor Beeron was his master — a very kind 
master too ; sat up rather late, but good pay. He remem- 
bered Melor Beeron's personal appearance as if he had only 
seen him yesterday ; very tall, very large man ; red hair, 
blue eyes, raw-boned figure ; great man to fight ; very fine- 
looking man ; wrote poetry about Greece and was author of 
a book called the History of England. He had read them in 
the Greek language, and considered them very fine. Hoped 
our honors would excuse him, but thought we would like to 
see a friend of Melor Beeron, who was acquainted w ith him 
personally and could tell us all about him. Was m very re- 



104 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



duced circumstances now ; lived by means of the fountain ) 
gentlemen who came to see it always gave him a trifle of 
change. 

Of course after receiving all this information we could not 
do less than give the old man a trifle of change. He bowed 
very low again, expressed his devotion to the English, his 
undying attachment to Melor Beeron, and gradually disappear- 
ed through the doorway in the wall. 

Our walk back from the fountain was over rugged and 
precipitous rocks. The distance to the town is about two 
miles. 

I chanced next day to be passing the Hotel de Commerce, 
rather a dirty establishment kept by an Italian, but the best 
in Hermopolis, when it occurred to me that it would be well 
to look in and see if there were any late arrivals. I did so ; 
T looked in, and saw some late arrivals that astonished me 
not a little. Seated at a table, in all the glory of omelette, 
coffee, bread, and wine, were my friends, Doctor Mendoza and 
the Madam, who had arrived that morning in the French 
steamer. " Oh, mon Dieu !" cried the Madam, " Voila le 
General !" " Yery bad Hotel dis," said the Doctor ; " come 
sit down ; no much for mange here. I no like Hermopolis. 
Sacr-r-r ! Diabolo ! One miserable Sporkeria dis hotel ! 
Eh, bien ! I shall be tres contents to leave Hermopolis ! Ti& 
imposs to remain here !" 

The coffee was muddy to an excess ; it choked the Doctor ; 
and this excited him to such a degree that the Madam was 
forced to interfere in order to prevent him from chastising the 
waiter for not making better coffee. However, we made the 
best of what there was, exclusive of the coffee, which indeed 
was no worse than any I had tasted in Syra ; and then the 
Doctor informed me that he had concluded to go on as far as 
Constantinople, having heard that there was an excellent 
hotel in Pera, kept by one Misseri, a celebrated oriental 
dragoman. 

I was very glad to meet my friends again ; and we spent 
the rest of the afternoon rambling about the suburbs of the 
town in search of novelties, and enjoying such conversation as 



SYR A. 



we could carry on in a mixture of French, English, and 
Italian. The Madam was quite enthusiastic on the Acropolis 
of Athens ; but the Doctor could not rid his mind of the vast 
difference that existed between the Orient of Athens and the 
Commerce of Hermopolis — especially in the matter of coffee, 
which he declared was one of the necessaries of life. He hoped, 
however, to get some clear coffee on the French steamer tc 
Constantinople, by means of which he anticipated being ena- 
bled to wash the grounds of the Hermopolis coffee down his 
throat by the time he arrived at the Hotel de Misseri. 

The Island of Syra, described by Homer as one of the 
most beautiful and fertile in the Grecian Archipelago, must 
have suffered a considerable change in its aspect since the 
days of the great poet. Certainly there is no beauty about 
it now, save that of a pleasant climate and richly-colored 
atmosphere ; and its fertility seemed to me to consist chiefly 
in rocks, which grow all over it with wonderful luxuriance. 
The green spots, if there be any, are few and far between 
I saw nothing that looked at all green there except the 
green spectacles of Doctor Mendoza, and an English tourist, 
with a red guide-book. The fact is, I have always been of 
opinion that Homer drew largely upon his imagination. His 
battles are rather tough, to say the least o them ; his heroes 
somewhat given to marvelous deeds of courage ; and his 
poetry and facts a little on the blood-and-thunder order. Be- 
sides what could he tell about the beauty or fertility of Syra, 
except from hearsay? He was perfectly blind, according to all 
historical accounts, and if he saw the island at all when he 
wrote about it, he probably saw it in imagination, which 
every body knows is a very delusive way of seeing. Now 
plain facts, upon being distilled through the brain of a poet, 
often become highly charged with the colors of fancy. Homer 
distilled largely ; his brain was an extensive establishment ; 
he worked up facts and fictions with equal facility ; a thirsty 
public swallowed with avidity ; and thirsty publics have swal 
lowed ever since as a matter of fashion. The fashion is kept 
up chiefly by other distillers of facts. Byron did a large 
business in that way ; he did it well ; his brain was on a 

E* 



106 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



grand scale ; nothing passed through it without acquiring as 
intoxicating power. Who is there, with a soul in his body, 
that has not been glorious on draughts of Byron ? Lamartine 
distills also ; I recommend him as an antidote ; he produces 
soda-water that allays the thirst ; he sobers people who have 
been made drunk by all the poets, from the days of Homer 
down to the days of Lamartine. No man, however intoxicat- 
ed by the powers of genius, can read Lamartine's experience 
in Greece without becoming instantly sobered. The dying 
request of this great poet, when attacked by a slight indis- 
position, that he should be buried under a certain classical 
tree ; that on the bark of that tree but a single word should 
be inscribed to mark his grave — no other word than the name 
of his Maker, so that the world might know where Lamar- 
tine lay — is the most intensely affecting piece of bathos, to say 
nothing of its blasphemy, in the whole range of sentimental 
literature. If that fails to make the tourist weep who fol- 
lows, he should be condemned to read Raffaelle the remain- 
der of his days. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SMYRNA. 

Our passage from Syra to Smyrna was very pleasant, not- 
withstanding a stiff breeze which compelled us to lie close in 
under the lee of Chio. The weather was clear and bracing ; 
and upon entering the Gulf of Smyrna nothing could surpass 
the rich glow of the atmosphere, and the variety and beauty 
of the scenery. By the time we reached the anchorage, every 
passenger was ready to go on shore and enjoy a day's ramble 
on terra firma. While we were waiting for the officers of the 
port to come alongside, and give the required permission, I 
made a hasty sketch of the town including the neighboring 
hills and the old Genoese castle, which I have since filled up 




SMYRNA FROM THE ANCHORAGE- 



108 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



more m detail from a drawing kindly presented to me in Fior 
ence by my esteemed friend Kellogg, the artist. It will give 
a better idea of Smyrna, perhaps, than pages of description. 

In the course of two hours, during which we were forced ' 
to restrain our impatience and listen to the most barbarous 
jargon of tongues on board and all around the steamer, it was 
formally announced to us by the Captain that Smyrna was in 
quarantine, and that any body who went ashore would have 
to remain there until the quarantine had expired. We were 
at liberty to go ashore if we pleased, because the steamer 
was not in quarantine, but we were not at liberty to come on 
board again because Smyrna was in quarantine, and the 
steamer required 'pratique for the next port. Smyrna and 
every body in it had been laboring under the influence of 
quarantine for the past five days, and would continue to 
labor under it for three days to come, by which period he 
(the Captain) hoped to be safely at anchor in Constantinople 

This piece of information enabled me to comprehend cer- 
tain proceedings which had occasioned me much anxiety of 
mind for some time previous. I saw now that the dark- 
looking men in the boats, with flashy uniforms, who were 
taking little slips of paper from the officers and passengers of 
the steamer, in wire tongs and strange-looking boxes with 
long handles ; and shouting fiercely to all the boatmen who 
dared to approach us — sometimes giving them a thrust with 
the boat-hooks — were not really convinced that we had the 
plague on board ; but that they were simply doing their duty 
in the usual form. It was my first experience in the mys- 
teries of quarantine ; and I was much interested in all the 
forms and ceremonies. The wrath of the chief officer in the 
boat, when there was any danger of contact ; the excessive 
caution of the men with the little tongs ; the intense fear 
under which all parties seemed to labor, that the smallest 
scrap of paper, or the slightest touch of human flesh, even in 
its most healthy condition, would carry death and destruction 
somewhere, either into Smyrna or out of it, was a very curi- 
ous and striking exhibition of the power of fancy. It was 
enough to fill the soul of any timid man with such dreadful 



SMYRNA 



109 



visions of cholera, plague, fevers and other diseases, as could 
scarcely fail in the end to result in a serious fit of illness, if 
not in plague itself. The cause of the present quarantine 
was equally as absurd as the ceremonies. It appeared that 
some vessel under quarantine, was taking in a supply of 
water, which is permitted under certain rigid rules, in regard 
to the handling of the hose. One of the men in the water- 
boat lost his balance and touched the hose with his hand, by 
which means he brought himself and Smyrna with its hun- 
dred and fifty thousand inhabitants, under the restrictions of 
quarantine for eight days. 

I had no great desire to go ashore, previous to this unpleas- 
ant piece of intelligence, simply because there appeared to 
be no difficulty in the way ; but I now became inspired with 
an irresistible desire to take a ramble through Smyrna ; and 
although it was my intention to stop here on my return from 
Constantinople, it was impossible to wait that length of time 
under existing circumstances. Such a taboo as this, in a 
country professing to have some intercourse with civilized 
nations, was not to be borne; it was an outrage upon the 
rights of man. My ticket was for Constantinople; it was 
good for the next steamer — if the next steamer should not be 
laid up in quarantine by a similar misfortune to its hose-pipe. 
But I was not going to sacrifice the rights of man for a mis- 
erable piece of leather. The w T ater-boat was going ashore, 
and so was one individual from the steamer, if he was destin- 
ed never again to leave the precincts of Smyrna. Taking my 
knapsack upon my shoulder, I bade an affectionate farewell 
to Doctor Mendoza and the Madam, who looked exceed- 
ingly concerned for my future fate ; and jumping into the 
boat was soon under way for the wharf It was quite prob- 
able, from the uncertain contingencies upon which the lib- 
erty of locomotion depends in this part of the world, that I 
should never see my worthy friends again ; so I turned to 
take a last look at them before the boat reached the landing. 
The Doctor was shaking his head gravely, as if he thought 
it "imposs" that all could be right in a certain quarter; and 
the Madam was talking with rapid gestures as if she fully 



no 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



concurred in that opinion, and was enabled from observation 
on various occasions to confirm it by the most ample test- 
imony. 

One Salvo, the son of a ship-chandler, took possession of 
me, and led me off victoriously to a small hotel, kept near 
the wharf by his father, Salvo the elder. There I was fed on 
ham and eggs, in the most sumptuous manner by the whole 
Salvo family, who were not only proud, but extremely happy 
in being enabled to claim acquaintance with so distinguished 
a guest. Salvo Junior had spent three years in America, 
where he was certain he had seen me hundreds of times , 
and Salvo Senior was the father of Salvo Junior, and had fur- 
nished American ships with articles of chandlery for thirty 
years past, and, consequently, on both grounds had a perfect 
right to know me ; and Mrs. Salvo, although she spoke no- 
thing but Greek and Italian, and had never seen me either 
in America or elsewhere, up to the date of my arrival at the 
Salvo Hotel, yet being the wife of Salvo Senior, and the mother 
of Salvo Junior, and, moreover, a very fat and good-natured 
old lady, I was forced to acknowledge that I had seen either 
herself, or somebody -a good deal ]ike her, before. It was 
really a luxury to receive so much kindness in a strange land, 
accompanied as it was by ham and eggs and several cups of 
excellent black tea ; and I was altogether too happy to ana- 
lyze the motives. That it was all genuine kindness, I found 
to my great satisfaction before leaving Smyrna, for the bill 
was unusually moderate, and it required some persuasion to 
induce that worthy family to accept any thing for service, 
which is rather a rare occurrence at the best establishment 
in Europe or Asia Minor. 

Salvo Junior gave himself up wholly to my pleasure during 
my sojourn in Smyrna. We rambled about the bazaars, ex- 
plored the ruins of the old Genoese fort, rode out to all the 
neighboring villages, and smoked the chibouck and sipped 
caffe in every respectable establishment throughout the city. 

A few days may be spent very pleasantly in Smyrna. The 
costumes of the inhabitants are remarkable for richness and 
variety ; and the bazaars and different places of public re- 



SMYRNA. 



Ill 



sort, both for business and pleasure, afford an excellent idea 
of Oriental life. The beauty of the Smyrniote women (some 
travelers call them ladies) is proverbial ; nor has it, like most 
accounts of the refined state of society in Smyrna, been ex- 
aggerated. They certainly deserve their reputation for dark 
flashing eyes and classical features ; and that being the only 
flattering reputation they do deserve, from all I could learn 
on reliable authority, as well as from my own limited observ- 
ation, it affords me great pleasure to accord it to them. 

Lounging about the bazaars a day or two after my arrival 
in Smyrna, I thought I recognized a familiar voice. A fash- 
ionable-looking tourist was making a bargain for a fez. His 
dress was new to me ; but there could be no mistake in the 
voice. I went up cautiously and looked at his face. It was 
the face of an American gentleman whom I had met in 
various parts of Europe. Bimby was his name. He was in 
the most exquisite distress in regard to the texture of the fez. 
The fact is, poor Bimby was the victim of want ; not that he 
was in want of money ; he had plenty of that — too much for 
his own happiness ; but he always wanted something that it 
was very difficult, if not quite impossible, to find in this world. 
Every morning he got up oppressed with wants ; every night 
he went to bed overwhelmed and broken down with wants. 
I never saw a man in comfortable circumstances in such a 
dreadful state of destitution in all my life. When I first saw 
him, he was on the way from Florence to Milan, in quest of 
a pair of pantaloons of a particular style. No man in Europe 
understood cutting except Pantaletti. There was a sit in Pant- 
aletti that made him indispensable. He (Bimby) had tried 
the Parisian tailors, but they were deficient in the knees. It 
was his intention to proceed at once from Milan to Leipsic for 
boots ; the Germans were the only people who brought boots 
to perfection, and decidedly the best were to be had at Leip- 
sic. He expected to be obliged to return to Paris for shirts; 
there was a sit in the collar of the Parisian shirt that suited 
him. His medicines he always purchased in London ; his 
cigars he was forced to import from Havana ; his Latakia 
tobacco he was compelled to purchase himself in Smyrna, 



112 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



and this was partly the occasion of his present visit. As to 
wines, it was nonsense to undertake to drink any but the pure 
Johannisberg ; which he generally saw bottled on the Rhine 
every summer, in order to avoid imposition. His winters he 
spent chiefly in Spain ; it was the only country where good 
cream was to be had ; but the coffee was inferior, and he 
sometimes had to cross the Pyrenees for want of a good cup 
of coffee. No mode of traveling suited him exactly — in fact, 
he disliked traveling. Hiding he hated, because it jolted him ; 
walking, because it tired him ; the snow, because it was cold ; 
the sun, because it was warm ; Rome, because it was damp ; 
Nice, because it was dry ; Athens, because it was dusty- (By 
the way, I disliked Athens myself, chiefly on that account ; 
Bimby was right there.) But it was impossible for him to 
live in America again. What could any man of taste do there ? 
No pictures, no ruins, no society, no opera, no classical asso- 
ciations — nothing at all, except business ; and all sorts of 
business he despised. It was a ridiculous as well as a vulgar 
way of spending life. In fact, the only decent people he had 
met with were the French ; a man might contrive to exist 
a while in Paris. Not that he approved altogether of the 
French language ; it wanted depth and richness ; the only 
language worthy a man of sense was the Sanscrit. As soon 
as he had suited himself in boots at Leipsic, he was going to 
perfect himself in Sanscrit at the University of Berlin ; after 
which he hoped to recover the effects of hard study by a tour 
through Bavaria, which was the only country on the face of 
the earth where the beer was fit to drink. 

Unhappy Bimby ! miserable Bimby ! Man wants but lit- 
tle here below, as a general rule ; but there are exceptions. 
Bimby will be the victim of want to the last day of his life. 
If not born in him, it was bred in him by bad training, or no 
training at all. 

But enough of human frailties. Bimby has a kind heart, 
and really wants nothing to make him a very good fellow, 
except ten hours a day of useful employment. 

The next steamer for Constantinople was fortunate enough 
to escape the vexations of quarantine. I got my ticket duly 



SMYRNA. 



113 



vised at the Bureau ; and, having taken leave of my un- 
happy friend, who was bound to Athens in search of a Greek 
capote, and of Salvo Senior, and Mrs. Salvo, and Salvo 
Junior, I bade good-by to Smyrna, and departed for the City 
of the Sultan 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



There is no longer the charm of romance in Mediterranean 
travel ; steam has swallowed up every thing — even in great 
part the beautiful turbans and flowing robes of the Turks, 
which are fast disappearing in all the traveled routes, and it 
seems likely to swallow up their prejudices and beards at last. 
Now one is whirled along at such a rate that he has to keep 
a book in one hand and a map in the other to know where 
he is. Tourists are even known and cheated according to 
the color of their books ; red indicating Anglo-Saxon origin, 
full purses, and abundant credulity ; black denoting cunning, 
and all other colors the poverty and insignificance of mongrel 
nations. It is a mere summer excursion all over the Medi- 
terranean. Starting from Marseilles, you are steamed all 
round Spain in a few days ; or if you like you take a glance 
at Africa from Algiers to Tunis, or a peep at Italy, com- 
mencing at Nice and ending at Naples ; and then you have 
Neapolitan lines all around Sicily, and the French lines again 
to Malta ; and from Malta English and French lines to Alex- 
andria, or to Constantinople, touching at Athens and the 
Greek islands, and Austrian lines all over the Levant, and 
Russian and Austrian lines throughout the Black Sea and up 
through Eastern Europe. It is nothing now to be steamed 
from New York to Vienna, all the way by water, or from 
California into the interior of Russia. Even the Nile is done 
by steam from Alexandria to Thebes, and the old temples of 
Egypt reverberate with the thunders of the escape-pipe, while 
the Arabs of the Libyan Desert look down in wonder from 
their camels on the thing of life that plows its way against 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



115 



the rushing waters. And as for railways, I will not under- 
take to say with what facility one can become a traveled 
gentleman in Europe, lest you should deem me guilty of 
raillery, or at how cheap a rate a man may become classical, 
with the aid of Murray and steam, lest I should be suspected 
of puffing. 

Near the Dardanelles we had a fine view of the plains of 
Troy, upon which stood in ancient times the famous city of 
that name, now the site of a small town called Taos. There 
stands in bold relief to this day the tomb of Achilles at Si- 
gseum, where Homer says the hero was buried. It was here 
that most of the battles between the Greeks and Trojans were 
fought ; and on this tomb Polyxena was sacrificed, and Al- 
exander, in after ages, paid tribute to the " bravest of all the 
Greeks" — for which see Homer, Lempriere, and Murray, es- 
pecially the latter, who gives the particulars neatly done up 
in a hand-book. 

On entering the Dardanelles, we looked out for the place 
where Leander was drowned in swimming to his lady-love, 
and where the beautiful Hero threw herself from the tower 
in despair ; also the precise spot where Byron caught a cold 
in swimming for fame, and where Xerxes built his bridge of 
boats, and made a fool of himself a long time before by beat- 
ing the sea because it swamped his ships and destroyed his 
labors — all of which we probably saw, but I can not assert it 
as a positive fact. 

We entered the Sea of Marmora by sundown, and became 
poetical over its sleeping isles. It was a night for romantic 
thoughts ; the moon was so minutely visible through the 
clear atmosphere that its seas and mountains lay outspread 
upon it like a chart of silver, the sky glittered with stars, the 
waters of Marmora were as smooth as -glass, and the isles 
softly steeped in a mellow light, and the dim outlines of the 
mountains of Europe and of Asia loomed up like sleeping 
giants in the mystic background. 

About the decks lie bearded Turks, smoking their chiboucks, 
and Greeks in petticoats, and pale Armenians in tall turbans 
and long robes, sipping their coffee and talking of the money- 



116 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



market ; and dirty Arabs, m their brown capotes, doing no- 
thing at all, and not likely to do any thing for some time ; 
and Jewish peddlers and pilgrims, nodding and reading aloud 
from the Talmud, or praying in dark corners ; and Moham- 
medans of all castes, spreading their mats in the most incon- 
venient places, and bowing down toward Mecca, regardless 
of the world and all its prejudices. Some hundreds of stupid 




Turkish soldiers, with heavy faces, half sea-sick, are gathered 
in huge piles on the forecastle deck, or gamble in groups 
about the gangways ; and abaft the break of the quarter-deck 
is a large cross-barred cage, covered over like a tent, rilled 
with masked, and black-eyed, laughing, romping Turkish 
women and squalling babies, belonging to the Harems of 
those old gray-bearded Mussulmans close by smoking their 
chiboucks or bobbing at Mecca ; and now and then there 
emerges from the cage an ugly African, who draws her mask 
over her thick lips if you look toward her, with as much co- 
quetry as if she thought it would not do to let too much 
beauty be seen at once Officers without number, must ached, 
gilded, brass-banded, and buttoned to excess, go up stairs and 
down stairs, and smoke cigars about the decks, and never 
seem to be doing any thing but passing the time as pleasantly 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



117 



as possible : sometimes you see a gold-banded cap. with a 
gentleman in uniform under it. parading itself on a high 
plank amidships, and if you watch him carefully you will see 
him raise his right hand or his left, point mysteriously to 
either side, keep it so a few moments, and then drop it with 
graceful air, greatly exhausted by the effort. That man has 
done his duty ; he has indicated to the helmsman that it 
would be advisable to port or starboard a little ; and then 
he comes down, with a proud consciousness of knowledge 
which the generality of mankind does not share, and resigns 
himself to cigars and conversation. Stewards and waiters 
are continually going forward to and returning from the head- 
quarters of the cuisinier, where important consultations are 
held on diet, and matters prepared for the table, as in the 
German Diets. Grim, black-looking firemen, besmeared with 
coal and soot, come up so unexpectedly out of little round 
holes in the deck that the passengers standing near are startled 
out of a week's growth — if passengers in this part of the 
world can be startled. And we who walk the quarter-deck, 
speculating upon all these things, and the rise and probable 
destiny of Mohammedanism ; priding ourselves upon our su- 
periority over all other nations in piety, morals, and railroads ; 
discoursing on the progress of civilization under the mighty 
influence of steam ; damning Turks, Arabs, and Greeks when 
they get in our way ; and apostrophizing the heavenly bodies, 
the scenery, and Latakia tobacco ; we are gentlemen of ele- 
gant leisure, traveling for our own amusement and the benefit 
of mankind. We carry red books in our hands, and astonish 
our friends at home with our proficiency in the classics ; we 
are the men who have seen the world, and are just popping 
m on Constantinople for pastime. 

A wonderful sight is this city of the Sultan, after all ; one 
of the few things the traveler enjoys on this side of the world 
that approach the enthusiastic anticipations formed by read- 
ing works of imagination. I know of nothing to compare 
with the first view of Constantinople. Any thing like de- 
scription seems tame and out of place in attempting to give 
an idea of such a scene. It is purely a matter of feeling ; 



118 



A CHUSADE IN THE EAST. 



there is no analyzing the sensations experienced by the be- 
holder ; he may be perfectly conscious of the nature of his 
own impressions, yet entirely unable to convey any adequate 
idea of them to others. ' To me it seems a renewal of the un- 
alloyed pleasures of youth ; a return after mingling with the 
world and its realities, to the first pure, joyous sense of the 
beautiful. All that I had ever read of the East and its ro- 
mance was here a gorgeous dream realized ; yet not all a 
reality, for there was no dividing mark between the strictly 
real and what so imperceptibly merged into realms of fancy. 

We reached the anchorage on the outside a few hours before 
daylight. The grating jar of the chain as it ran out aroused 
us from our pleasant dreams of home ; and soon we heard the 
Arabs and Turks on deck echo in guttural tones the words 
Stamboul ! Stamboul ! There was a charm in the name that 
drove away from me every vestige of sleep. I was wide 
awake in a moment. My more experienced fellow-travelers, 
however, turned over to enjoy another nap, with the philosoph- 
ical remark that " it's a great bore to be waked up when one 
can't see any thing in the dark." There was truth as well 
as philosophy in this, but all my efforts to sleep again were 
in vain. From the open sky-light came down now and then 
the magic words Stamboul ! Stamboul ! bringing before me, as 
T strove to keep down my eyelids, visions of gilded palaces and 
seraglios, and Sultans in turbans and flowing robes, and the 
spray of fountains, and caiques sweeping over the flashing 
waters, and the countless things of beauty that are involun- 
tarily associated with the first thoughts of Constantinople. It 
was useless to try any longer — an invisible something lifted 
me up bodily and tumbled me out on the cabin floor, where 
I contrived, after slipping on two or three pairs of boots that 
were much too short or too long, and some trowsers that 
bagged in the legs with a very Turkish effect, to grope out 
what belonged to me, and rushing up on deck I just succeeded 
in not carrying away the roof of the companion-way. 

The gleam of approaching day was spread over the eastern 
sky ; low on the water were a few pale lights flickering with 
a faint glimmer, while overhead all was deep in night, but 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



119 



clear and soft, and spangled with countless brilliant stars. 
There was a loom of darkness visible in the distance, shape- 
less and shadowy as a cloud resting on the horizon ; all eyes, 
were turned toward it ; that is to say, all eyes that were 
open, for the mass of the deck passengers were snoring away 
in perfect indifference to the Sublime Sultan and all his 
dominions. The women in the cage, however, were chatter 
ing like so many magpies, as usual whether by day or night ; 
and about the bulwarks were lounging some of the more 
enthusiastic Turks and Arabs, who were awakened probably 
by the chattering, or unable to sleep, like myself, from a 
fevered state of the imagination ; the very men whose con- 
versation about Stamboul had so charmed me. 

" Where is it ?" said I to an old Turk, who reminded me 
of the pictures of Mahomet, " is that it where the lights are ?" 
<£ Stamboul !" replied the old man, nodding. " There is no- 
thing in sight but that dark hill, is there V " Stamboul !" 
rejoined the Turk. " I can't see it," said I. " Stamboul !" 
cried the old man pettishly. " You don't speak English, do 
you, sir ?" " Stamboul !" he bawled at the top of his voice, 
" Stamboul ! Stamboul It was quite evident that the old 
gentleman was touched on the subject of Stamboul, so I said 
no more. To the best of my knowledge he never uttered a 
word but Stamboul while he remained on the steamer ; and 
even long after sunrise, when every body with eyes could see 
the well-known mosques and minarets within gunshot, he 
continued to point at them and repeat to every passenger, 
" Stamboul ! Stamboul !" 

As the day opened fair and clear, the outlines of the highej 
points broke out through the morning atmosphere and stood 
in bold relief against the sky, and soon the whole magnificent 
view was revealed with the startling effect of an optical illu 
sion. Mosques and minarets there were in profusion, palaces 
with all the architectural ornament of oriental taste, rising 
from within the walls of the city, hemmed around with green 
shrubbery ; round white domes, glittering like globes of snow ; 
strangely-colored houses, with projecting roofs and grated 
windows ; the Turkish flags waving on the towers ; sails 



120 



A CUUSADE IN THE EAST. 



gliding noiselessly out from under the shadow of the ram* 
parts ; vistas of valleys and hills steeped in a soft glow of 
purple, through which gleamed villages and pointed minarets, 
and the moist foliage of groves, the heights beyond tipped with 
golden rays of sunshine, and the sleeping waters of the Bospho- 
rus, lost in the glitter of palaces and the shadows of mountains. 
With such a sky, such glowing lights and mystic shades, such 
soft distances, such strange and fanciful fabrics, looming up in 
a perfect maze of beauty, it is difficult to reconcile any idea 
of reality. It is an enchantment beyond all the dreams of 
fancy ; the very soul is rapt in an ideal world, and for a mo- 
ment reality itself becomes a dream too bright and beautiful 
for comprehension. 

But the anchor is up ; the hissing steam sends us dashingly 
into the Golden Horn, where, amid all the strange sights and 
confusing sounds possible to be conscious of in so short a time, 
the chain runs crashing out again, and we are permitted to 
land wherever the prophet wills, which is any where at all. 
Here let me solemnly pause, while six hotel commissioners 
from Pera are endeavoring to tear me to pieces, and relieve 
my mind of this moral truth ; it has troubled me for three 
weeks, night and day ; it has twisted itself into every imagin- 
able shape for the sake of originality, but the truth remains 
the same — a truth involuntarily spoken by every traveler who 
has put foot ashore here. He who would fill his soul with a 
thing of beauty, that he would cherish as a joy forever, let 
him never go beyond the first full view of Constantinople. 
To see, is bliss ; to smell, is reality ; to touch, is misery in the 
last degree. 

A very stylish gentleman in petticoats carried my knapsack, 
and conducted me to the Hotel de Byzant, a clean airy estab- 
lishment, in view of Stamboul and the Bosphorus. The pro- 
prietor is a Hungarian, his wife an Italian, and his daughter 
a full-blown beauty of sixteen. 

I took advantage of my first leisure hour to call at the Mis- 
seri for the purpose of seeing my Portuguese friends, Doctor 
Mendoza and the Madam ; having learned from Carlo the guide 
that they had arrived several days before. The Misseri is a very 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



121 



handsome and fashionable hotel, situated in one of the principal 
streets of Pera. I recommend it at a glance to all traveling 
gentlemen who desire to get rid of their money in the most 
expeditious manner. The ante-rooms and passages are crowded 
from morning till night with stylish dragomans, guides, domes- 
tics and lackeys, who seem always ready and willing to 
show inexperienced tourists how such a thing can be accom- 
plished without loss of time. 

I was ushered up a flight of stairs into a grand saloon, and 
from the grand saloon out again and up several more flights 
of stairs, till a door was knocked at, and my name was an- 
nounced. "Ah, mon Dieu !" cried the Madam, "encore Mon- 
sieur General!" — ""Very good hotel dis !" said the Doctor, 
coming forward to meet me, "walk in; sit down; take some 
wine ! very good wine dis ! De Madam is a little indispose, 
but to-morrow he shall be better." 

We had a very pleasant time of it, in relating our adven- 
tures from the day of parting at Smyrna ; and having made 
an engagement to visit the Giant's Mountain on the following 
day, we shook hands again and parted with a profusion of 
friendly bows on both sides. 

After all the romance of oriental life, as described in books, 
and the charm of laziness so beautifully depicted by poetical 
writers, there is a want of real comfort and enjoyment pain- 
fully apparent throughout Constantinople. A person of ener- 
getic temperament would soon desire a change. The novelty 
of picturesque costumes and strange languages and customs 
soon wears away, and one begins to feel the want of more ex- 
citing scenes to keep up the interest. During the day it is 
pleasant enough to ramble about the bazaars, or take a stroll 
over the hills ; but when night comes there is a dreary void, 
which nothing but the remembrance of more exciting scenes 
can fill. A miserable opera or a tawdry theatre in Pera may 
serve to kill time for one or two evenings, but after that you 
might as well be in the midst of a desert — better, in fact, for 
then you would not be disturbed by howling dogs or the ever- 
lasting cries of " Yang far ! Yang far!" — the fire in Stam- 
boul that can never be seen. The streets are of inky dark 

F 



122 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



ness ; not a step can you venture out without a guide and a 
lantern ; and even then it is problematical whether you will 
return without broken ankles in crossing the grave-yards, or the 
loss of a coat-tail in a battle with the dogs. 'In the register 
of the Hotel de Byzant there is a melancholy statement of 
an English traveler who complains of having been seized by 
some Turkish soldiers for throwing stones at what he sup- 
posed, in the darkness of night, to be dogs, but which turned 
out to be the soldiers themselves, who immediately seized him 
and put him in prison : and it was not until next day that he 
was liberated. The insecurity of life in the suburbs, and the 
total absence of every thing like law, are sufficient in them 
selves to keep the stranger within narrow limits ; and, 
although there is more security now than there was some 
years past, it is still quite bad enough. Cases of assassina- 
tion are frequent, and robbery is so common an occurrence as 
to excite but little attention. The police regulations are so in- 
efficient, if any exist at all. that they have no influence what- 
ever in the prevention of crime. There is no public press, 
except one or two small papers published in the Frank quar- 
ter, and of course very little is known of these occurrences, 
except what finds its way into other countries through private 
correspondence. It is but just, however, to state that most 
of these crimes are committed by persons residing in the 
Frank quarters — either Gr reeks, Italians, or the refuse popu- 
lation of other countries. The Turks themselves are too in- 
dolent to engage in any thing requiring energy and personal 
activity, and would sooner smoke the pipe of content on five 
piasters a day, than run any great risk to gain money or ex- 
pend their time in useless exertion. They find it much easier 
to cheat in a quiet way, and enjoy the profits of others, than 
to incur the labor and inconvenience of open robbery ; and 
for the shedding of blood in a small w T ay they have no taste. 
It is only when thoroughly aroused by some great cause, as 
in the war with the Greeks, that they cast off their habitual 
lethargy, and go earnestly into the business of general massacre, 
and then there are few nations that can surpass them in deeds 
of cruelty and wholesale bloodshed. 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



123 



The Turks are in many respects a most singular and in- 
comprehensible people. Effeminate in their habits ; dallying 
half their lives in the harem, or frittering away their time in 
trifling conversation ; sipping their coffee from morning till 
night, and never without the chihouck, which must have a 
stupefying and enervating effect ; yet they seem to be capa- 
ble of enduring extraordinary fatigue ; and when once roused 
into action no race of people exhibit greater physical courage 
or more ferocious determination. The toils of travel ; the 
torments of hunger and thirst ; the extremes of heat and cold ; 
all the privations of military life, and all the terrors of death, 
fail to swerve them from their bloody career of revenge or 
rapine. This wonderful power of endurance may be attri- 
buted, in some measure, to their simple mode of living, and 
the frequent use of cold water in their daily ablutions. "What 
would be considered extreme privation in America, in the 
matter of food and clothing, is habitual with the Turk. A 
crust of dry bread, with a bunch of grapes, or a dish of soup, 
is his ordinary meal ; and his clothing, in winter or summer, 
consists of a few simple robes thrown loosely around him. 
Flesh of all kinds is sparingly used, and strong liquors are 
almost unknown in Oriental climates ; and even here in Con- 
stantinople, where the winters are often as severe as in New 
York, the native population sit whole days in their shops 
without fire, and never think of destroying themselves by the 
use of hot-air stoves or the death-dealing salamander. It is 
a matter of surprise how they exist through the inclemency of 
the season, without those ordinary comforts which we are apt 
to regard as essential to life. Their houses are built without 
fire-places or chimneys, and no provision is made for heating 
them ; so that all who are accustomed to these luxuries find 
it almost impossible to endure, even for a few weeks, what 
the Turks endure all their lives. For this reason, perhaps, 
they know little of those fireside enjoyments which tend so 
much in other countries to refine and socialize the human 
family, and cultivate the better feelings of our nature ; for, 
whatever may be the sanitary evils of an atmosphere vitiated 
by an excessive use of fire, it may be set down as an axiom 



124 



A CIIUSADE IN THE EAST. 



that in no country where the thermometer ranges for three 
months near the freezing point can a community of people 
enjoy the pleasures of domestic life, or the refining influence 
of social intercourse, without creating a comfortable temper- 
ature in their houses. A man must have more than Turkish 
stoicism, or Turkish philosophy, to retain for any length of 
time a kindly feeling toward his fellow-man, or a love of the 
genial pleasures of life, where he is subject to continual phys- 
ical discomfort, or, what is equally as bad, reduced to a state 
of torpor, like a caterpillar, or compelled to make a smoking 
chimney of his mouth and nostrils, like a Turk. This custom, 
however, of living without fires, whether from taste or neces- 
sity, sometimes has an effect similar to that of the five straws 
a day upon which the horse was fed till he died — it kills 
a good many every winter. The sufferings of the poorer 
classes in Constantinople are very great when the winter is 
unusually severe or protracted ; for, unlike the wealthier 
classes, who can cover themselves up in a cloak, and sit the 
season through in a state of lethargy, they are exposed to all 
the inclemencies of the weather, and almost without food or 
raiment. These facts I state to show that, although people 
may exist for months without fire, and sustain life on bread 
and cheese and an occasional scrap of meat, and become 
hardy animals, yet to be frozen or starved are extremes not 
calculated to prolong life. 

The tearing down of a portion of the bridge extending from 
Galata to the opposite side of the Golden Horn, and certain 
repairs thereto, which have been in progress for some days past, 
have given me some idea of the manner in which work is done 
in this country. I expected to see laziness in its perfection, and 
am not disappointed. Several hundred workmen are engaged 
upon this extraordinary job. The bridge is constructed of 
wood, and a very creditable piece of work it is — quite as good 
as most bridges of the kind — built, I believe, under the aus- 
pices of the present Sultan, Abd-ul-Mejid, by native work- 
men ; but I have forgotten my information on that point. It 
is a remarkable sight, this tearing down and putting up of the 
bridge by men in turbans and loose breeches— worth sitting 



COXSTAXTINOPLE. 



125 



down on the pile of lumber near the toll-house to enjoy for an 
hour or so. There is a gang not far off engaged in pulling 
some large beams out of the water. A small windlass would 
pull the whole raft up in ten minutes ; but they work by hand 
in preference, or because their ancestors did it. Twenty able- 
bodied men are doing the labor which could be done in half 
the time by two, with proper machinery. See them tug at 
that beam ! Not one putting a fourth of his weight on the 
rope. It moves two inches, after a tremendous amount of 
yelling and tugging, and an incessant confusion of tongues. 
There seems to be no master, unless the sleepy fellow sitting 
on the bridge, with a chibouck in his mouth, be the master, of 
which there is no evidence. Another fit of tugging and yell- 
ing ensues ; all hands now give up work, and betake them- 
selves to their respective pipes — the chattering of voices never 
flagging, for a single moment, except when momentarily 
arrested by the chibouck. The smoking lasts a good deal 
longer than the other part of the work ; but it is over at 
length, and they go at the beam again with renewed energy. 
Each man tugs on his own responsibility, without reference 
to the exertions of the others, and only at such long intervals 
as suit his peculiar views of the subject. By accident a gen- 
eral pull takes place, in the course of time ; and the beam 
comes up two inches further. All hands are again exhausted, 
and find, by reference to the sun, that it is the hour of prayer ; 
so to prayer they go — first, however, carefully making their 
ablutions. It is a picturesque and impressive sight, after all, 
to see these rude barbarians, in the midst of the busy turmoil 
of life, cast off all thought of worldly affairs, and bow down 
their heads toward Mecca, the sacred city of their Prophet. 
Absorbed in devotion, they seem unconscious of all the petty 
cares of humanity, and, for the time at least, are elevated 
Above the mere animal man. Even Christians might profit 
by their earnest sincerity. Unmoved by the prejudices of 
other races ; regardless of the busy world around them ; for- 
getting that there is aught upon earth to claim a moment's 
time, save the salvation of the soul, they give their whole 
being up to the- worship of God and the Prophet. Is it for 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



vain and self-constituted judges to say that these people, 
taught from infancy to regard their peculiar belief as the only 
true means of salvation, shall be rewarded for their sincerity 
by everlasting torture ? Oh, ye who are wrapt in the selfish- 
ness of a single idea ! ye who bode destruction to others ! 
look out upon the broad universe, and learn that there are 
millions of human hearts as sincere and devoted as yours, and 
that there is a Divine power, great and good and merciful 
enough to save all, even to the weakest and the most be- 
nighted. 

At last the prayers are ended, and now the toils of the 
world commence again. But first, a general smoke is neces- 
sary to refresh the system for another tug. The chiboucks 
being emptied in due time, a few skirmishing attempts are 
made at the log again — mere individual trials of strength. 
The whole gang finally prepare to begin work in earnest; but 
just as you imagine they are going to run the log out of the 
water with a general rush, a casual remark, dropped in con- 
versation, arouses the attention of the whole party. This has 
to be discussed in all its bearings, controverted, illustrated by 
anecdotes, sustained and repeated, till the subject is suffi- 
ciently exhausted for the present ; and then the ropes are 
stretched, the shouting commences, and the beam, after many 
back-slides, is fairly landed on terra firma. You feel a sense 
of relief, an inward thankfulness, when this victory of human 
force over inert matter has been achieved ; and, leaving the 
turbaned gang to smoke the pipe of triumph, and talk over 
the struggle past and prepare for the struggle to come, walk 
on in search of further novelties. All the workmen, those 
who wield the adze, the hatchet, and the saw, the master 
mechanics, as well as the common laborers, are so much like 
our friends of the beam, in their various branches of industry, 
that it is unnecessary. to call your attention to them ; and we 
leave them now, chatting, smoking, and praying, in the hope 
that, by the threats and promises of his Highness Abd-ul-Me- 
jid, and the spiritual aid of the Prophet, the bridge will be 
completed some time during the present month — or century. 

The difficulty of introducing any thing having a tendency 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



127 




A BUSINESS TRANSACTION. 

to improve the condition of the Turks, except where the effect 
is immediate and palpable, as in the use of steamers, is exem- 
plified in all their implements of husbandry, which are of the 
rudest and most primitive kind. An effort was made some 
years ago, under the auspices of the Sultan, who seems to 
have been persuaded into the experiment rather by a paltry 
ambition to be considered a patron of public improvement, 
than by any real desire on his own part that it should suc- 
ceed, to get up a mode] farm, so that all who had eyes to see 
might witness the superiority of a judicious system of agricul- 
ture. An American g-entleman, from one of the Southern 
States, of known capacity and intelligence, was placed at the 
head of it, and great promises were made, should the result 
prove satisfactory. Plows of the most approved pattern, and 
ail the best implements of husbandry, were brought over from 
the United States and put in operation ; but, notwithstanding 



128 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



the most flattering progress, it failed from want of encourage 
ment. The result was not sufficiently magical to arouse the 
Turks from their habitual lethargy ; the productions of the 
earth did not spring up in a single night, like some of their 
fabled temples ; and money began to grow scarce, or, at 
least, was found to be more satisfactorily invested in purchas- 
ing good faith from bad ministers, or replenishing the harem. 
with fresh supplies of fat cattle from the mountains of Cau- 
casus. The director and his family, after undergoing all the 
toils and privations of a long sojourn among a besotted and 
barbarous people, and suffering in health and purse, were 
finally compelled to give up all hope of success, and return to 
their native land ; where, it is to be hoped, they are by this 
time surrounded by the comforts of home and the blessings of 
civilization. 



CHAPTER XV. 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 

It is jl strange life here — half-civilized, half-savage. One 
lives in such an atmosphere of Orientalism that he uncon- 
sciously becomes Oriental in his habits, and smokes chiboucks 
and drinks muddy coffee as a matter of course. If it were not 
for the civilizing influence of hotels, I believe we Frangi should 
soon be Turks, even in our dress and the luxury of laziness. 
No traveler considers himself completely initiated into the 
mysteries of Oriental life till he has suffered scalding and 
strangulation in a Turkish bath, purchased a fez, and smoked 
himself sick at a narguilla. "When he has done all this, and 
learned to go about the bazaars alone, and say Kats grosh ? 
or, What does it cost ? he may congratulate himself upon hav- 
ing mastered the rudiments of Turkism. If he can double up 
his legs and squat like a tailor, it will be all the better, as he 
will be invited to sit on the floor whenever he visits a native 
house. Some of the pashaws, indeed, are getting Frankified 
in their notions, and keep two or three chairs for their guests; 
but this is an exception to the general rule. For three weeks 
I have labored hard to surmount these difficulties, and now I 
pride myself on being a very respectable Turk — in outward 
show at least, for I should be sorry to say any thing about 
morals. I have been thoroughly boiled out of my skin in a 
public bath; have suffered my beard to grow till I can swear 
by it ; smoked narguillas till I came within an ace of getting 
the delirium tremens ; and purchased a fez, which I wear two 
hours every night before going to bed, in the hope of conquer- 
ing a certain bashfulness which yet prevents me from appear- 
ing with it in public. Sitting cross-legged on the floor was 

F 



f 



130 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



the great trouble at first ; but that difficulty I have also sur 
mounted by hard practice and some risk of dislocating my 
limbs, which required an immense deal of twisting and 
stretching before they would come into the proper position ; 
and now I would defy any Turk in Stamboul to squat more 
gracefully. In the matter of chiboucks, great caution and 
judgment are necessary. JNTo person pretending to have the 
slightest claims to Orientalism will disgrace himself by smok- 
ing with a glass mouthpiece. Amber is the only true indi- 
cation of quality. None but the hamil, or burden-carriers, 
smoke glass. This fact I state for the benefit of all travelers 
who have an ambition to be truly Turkish — the glass mouth- 
pieces being so dextrously colored that it requires an adept to 
distinguish them from amber. When a person pays three 
dollars for a very pretty one, which he supposes to be the 
purest amber, and, after discoursing to all his friends upon 
its superior softness and delicacy of temperature, is quietly 
told by some kind resident, whose opinion he can not dispute, 
that it is common glass, worth about twenty-five cents, he has 
a right to speak feelingly on the subject. The stems must 
be six feet long, and of the best cherry. Jasmine, for short 
smoking, makes an admirable stem, and rosewood is not bad. 
All these can be had and bored to order in the pipe bazaars. 

The perpetual risk of life and limb to which the unwary 
traveler is subjected in rambling about the streets of Con- 
stantinople may be regarded as another test of Orientalism 
I consider that any man who spends three weeks here and 
employs his time usefully in lounging about the bazaars and 
streets of Stamboul, and hanging around the quays and pub- 
lic bridges of the Golden Horn, without losing an eye, suffer- 
ing dislocation of an ankle, or complete bodily crushing under 
a bale of merchandise, deserves ever after to be regarded as 
a shrewd and accomplished traveler. Running a muck among 
the Malays is agreeable pastime compared with the running 
of gauntlets through the streets of Galata or Stamboul. Take 
as an example a morning walk from the Hotel de Byzant to 
the bazaars on the other side of th3 bridge. 

Confident in your ability to find the way without Carlo 



f 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 



131 




THE HAMIL. 

who has already made a small fortune out of you ; rather 
hoping at the same time to meet with an adventure which 
you can relate on your return without a witness, you sally 
forth, stick in hand, and steer your way through the grave- 
yard to a tower on the left with a green top. This you fix 
upon as a sort of landmark. So far, very well. Xow you 
enter a gateway near the tower, where you are beset by a 
whole legion of beggars. There is a general clamor for alms 
— a whining and beseeching that Italian begging in all its 
variety never attained. Effendi ! Effendi! is all yon can 
understand ; it means gentleman ; most noble, exalted, and 
honorable sir, in the present case. Of course you must pay 
a few piasters for the pleasure of hearing yourself called Ef- 
fendi ; it sounds so Oriental, and makes one feel so Turkish. 
But this is only the first gang ; you have only fought your 



132 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



way through it with small change to start up a still more 
determined gang a little below. "Whole platoons of old wo- 
men and young, ragged boys and decrepit men, on either side 
of the narrow street, attack you with Effendi ! Effendi ! and 
sublimest Effendi, ranging from the most dulcet soprano to 
the most importunate falsetto. You walk on, under the con- 
viction that it would be impossible to relieve all this misery. 
Suddenly a voice of thrilling remonstrance reaches your ear ; 
it is so desperate in its appeals, so irresistibly imploring, and 
seems to say so plainly, For God's sake, Effendi, don't see a 
fellow-creature starve ; do save a human life by dropping 
half a piaster here — -just what would buy you one cigar ; 
give it and make a poor wretch happy for a day — that your 
conscience smites you, and you fee] that it would be a sin to 
purchase a momentary pleasure with what wou]d give a day's 
relief to a fellow-creature — so down goes the half piaster- 
Alas, this is only a drop in the ocean ; you are instantly be- 
set by the whole legion; the purse of Fortunatus would be 
ineffectual in appeasing the voracity of these poor wretches ; 
arms are outstretched toward you, and hands thrown up in 
all the agonies of hunger ; and the gaunt, leaden faces of the 
aged as they sit mute and motionless against the wall haunt 
you, and appeal to you with the terrible eloquence of despair. 
What can you do ? It is impossible to give aid to all. In 
the utter hopelessness of the case, you rush on, thanking God 
that such misery does not exist at home. Supposing you now 
to have reached the vicinity of the wharves in Galata with- 
out spraining an ankle over the huge round stones that are 
designated paving-stones, it is here that the difficulties of 
locomotion begin in earnest. The streets are not more than 
eight or ten feet wide, and every possible means of obstruc- 
tion seems to be resorted to in order to make the inconvenience 
still greater. Shop stands and tables that work on hinges ; 
sharp pieces of wood upon which are hung all sorts of dan- 
gerous wares ; boxes, and benches, and heaps of rubbish 
threaten instant destruction. Huge paving-stones, with con- 
ical tops, smooth and slippery with the slime of fish and 
other slimes, compose the groundwork of these thoroughfares. 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 



132 



upon which people are expected to walk ; and not only peo- 
ple, but horses, mules, asses, and sometimes camels. Now, 
walking is a simple operation in itself, and requires no great 
skill, but, coupled with these slippery stones and unexpected 
holes, these long wooden spikes, shop-stands, and bales of 
merchandise, it becomes an operation of great intricacy, and 
requires much study ; it is, in fact, an art ; one of the fine 
arts of Constantinople. Many an unlucky wight has been 
sacrificed in the pursuit, under the vain impression that 
ordinary proficiency would answer. You are now supposed 
to be looking up at a Greek capote, quite unconscious of 
harm. Guar da ! guar da! yells a hoarse voice; it is the 
voice of a hamil. These lusty fellows } that you see trot- 
ting along through the crowd, four at each end of a long 
pole, with a hogshead slung in the middle, are the burden- 
carriers, the draymen of Stamboul and Galata, who carry 
hogsheads, boxes, stones, and burdens of all kinds on their 
poles ; each pole acting as a powerful battering-ram on the 
human head. Guar da ! guar da roars the hamil, dexter- 
ously aiming the pole at the corner of your eye. By a lucky 
instinct you start and dodge it ; that time he has missed his 
aim. Scarcely have you escaped this danger when a clat- 
tering of hoofs startles you again. It is a fine horse, mounted 
by a Turkish officer. You admire the embroidery on the 
■officer's uniform, while he coolly endeavors to ride over you — 
it would be so amusing to see a Christian under the horse's 
feet ! You jump across the street at a single bound, flushed 
with indignation, but before you can say Bosh ! a man with a 
heavy burden on his back, and his head bowed down so low 
that he can only see six inches before him, runs into you, de- 
priving you effectually of all powers of articulation ; without 
breath a man can not even swear by the beard of the Prophet. 
About the time you recover from the effects of this attack, a 
mule laden with kegs of water, which operate as outriggers 
on each side, bears down upon you so unexpectedly that you 
are scraped up and turned around by the main force of head- 
way, and precipitated backward over a door-sill into the lap of 
an industrious artisan, who is at that moment refreshing him- 



134 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



self with a narguilla and a cup of coffee — both of which as a 
matter of course, are sacrificed. Starting out anew, as soon 
as you have made suitable reparation for the damage, you 
work your way through the crowd very much as an eel 
might be supposed to wind through a stubble-field ; and, by 
dint of perseverance and renewed caution, you eventually 
reach the bridge. Here you stop to draw a long breath, 
wipe the perspiration off your forehead, and enjoy the view. 
It is refreshing and Oriental, the whole thing — -just like the 
beautiful engravings in the annuals, only a good deal larger 
and better done. There are the same Turks with turbans 
on, the flowing robes and long beards, and peaked slippers ; 
the Persians with their tall shaggy hats, the Greeks and Al- 
banians in petticoats, the palefaced Armenians, the bearded 
and turbaned Jews, the dusky Egyptian slaves — just as you 
have seen them in prints of the bridge a thousand times, all 
"walking about like any other live people. But, on second 
thought, the whole scene is a good deal better than any thing 
in the line of art. It is absolutely splendid, you exclaim un- 
consciously ; by Jove, sir, it is gorgeous ! "What a magnifi- 
cent effect these mosques and minarets of Stamboul have — 
the domes looming up in the golden haze of the morning, 
high above the house-tops ; the minarets piercing the heavens, 
clear and white, like gigantic ornamented needles wrought 
out of pare ivory ; the quays lined with strangely-shaped 
houses, and forests of masts rising from the flashing waters 
of the harbor, with bright colors flaunting in the air ; the 
steamers from Therapia and Bayukdere sweeping in gallantly, 
leaving long trails of smoke behind them ; innumerable craft 
with flowing canvas, from the tiny felucca to the towering 
merchantman of the Black Sea, gliding about over the glorious 
Bosphorus ; and far and near the very waters are ahve with 
caiques, the most graceful and Oriental of little boats, with 
their smooth sides and pointed bows, darting hither and thither 
with the velocity of birds, skimming over the lucid deep as 
lightly as the swallows that sport around them — a picture ol 
Oriental life that art has never attained. Half the population 
of Stamboul seem to be afloat ; turbans of every color, brill- 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 



135 



iant robes, sashes, and uniforms glitter in the sunbeams ; 
the oars of the caiques flashing as if tipped with silver, and 
the busy hum of life rising over all with a mellow cheerful- 
ness. Along over the bridge, from end to end, flows another 
tide of life — the everlasting throng that crowd it from the 
dawn of morning to the darkness of night, and seem never 
to be done ; the Frank merchants from Pera and Galata, the 
Armenians from the bazaars of Stamboul, the Turks, Jews, 
and Copts, the Greeks, the Italians, the French, the English 
— all the nations of the globe appear to be passing over the 
bridge, speaking all the languages that can distort the tongue 
of man, wearing all the varieties of costume that can disfigure 
or give dignity to the form, and engaged in all the different 
pursuits that occupy the human brain ; the very vision, 
brought into glorious reality, that has haunted you from 
early youth in your dreams of the East. A voluptuous soft- 
ness, an odor of strange incenses fills the glowing atmosphere, 
a harmony of lights and shadows and vistas of golden haze 
and soft purple distances, that never so charmed the senses 
before, save in the earliest glimpses of the beautiful, when 
the heart was warm with youth and the spirit looked up in 
its freshness through the realms of fancy. Now turn inward 
the stream of thought, and upon its surface arise a thousand 
happy memories of the past, gliding back with it as it flows, 
till the soul wanders again in mystic worlds, where dwell in- 
habitants with crowns of diamonds and robes of precious fab- 
rics worked in gold, and white wands; and fairy castles are 
seen, and mountains of amber and pearl rise up and change 
into strange forms and vanish, as the clouds of a summer's 
eve. But this is all romance, aroused by outward show. 
There is as much sad reality in the City of the Sultan as any 
where else — a good deal more than you are prepared for after 
reading Miss Pardoe or Lady Montague. Don't give way to 
any weakness of this kind any more if you can help it. It 
makes one feel miserable when he wakes up — just like a nice 
mint-julep about bed- time and a bad headache the next 
morning. 

Close by the bridge is a boat station, where some hundreds 



136 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



of caiques are always in readiness to take passengers. For a 
quarter of a cent you can walk over on the bridge ; but let us 
suppose that you have never been in a caique, and are tempted 
by its swallow-like bows, as also by the solicitations of a sturdy 
fellow, turbaned and breeched in genuine Oriental style, who 
beckons you to jump in. A very pretty one is that, of which 
he appears to be the chief ornament. It is a perfect little 
fairy boat, trim and elegant in form, with a very sharp bow, 
low in the water, and raking up at the stern, which is also 
sharp ; smooth as glass outside, and decorated inside with 
carving in the true Turkish style ; a beautiful model for swift- 
ness and the very perfection of gracefulness. You jump in. 
Mashalla ! what a dainty little duck of a thing it is ! An 
inch more of headway would have tilted you overboard. 
Down you plump yourself on the carpet that covers the bot- 
tom and hold on nervously to the gunwales, your head peep- 
ing up and your eyes agog at all the strange faces around you, 
and the violent motions of the boatmen. Caiques are shearing 
in and skimming out all around. Guarda! guar da! is bawl- 
ed in your ears, till, like the cry of wolf, it ceases to attract no- 
tice ; and just then the long sharp bow of a rival caique, coming 
suddenly up, grazes your hand and bears off triumphantly with 
the skin of your knuckles. Guarda! guar da! again. This 
time you dodge ; no damage is done. Soon you are fairly out 
of the thickest part of the crowd. Away darts the caique, 
scarcely throwing a ripple from her bows ; turbans, fezzes, white 
robes, red cloaks and blue, flit by in other caiques ; away you 
go ! sweeping with a snake-like trail through a mist of 
confusing sights and din of sounds, darting in and out under 
the dark arches of the bridge, wheeled miraculously under 
chain cables and outstretched ropes, under the sterns of huge 
ships, across the bows of foaming barges, through whole fleets 
of racing small craft, till you are suddenly whirled around as 
upon a pivot and backed dexterously into the wharf at Stam- 
boul, where the sum of two cents, deposited upon the bottom 
of the caique, affords the boatman an idea of your exalted 
rank in society. From this point of debarkation it is a perfect 
Babel till you can extricate yourself from the crowd. Boat- 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 



137 



nitJi are ba ,r ling madly for passengers, the hamil are running 
to and fro « 7 Hh heavy burdens, shouting guar da ! as a matter 
of habit ; crowds of bare-legged laborers are tugging at big 
timbers, and deafening one another with loud conversation ; 
Greek sailors, piratical-looking Italians, Russian, French, and 
English men-of-war crews are lounging about the cafes, smok- 
ing, drinking, and quarreling ; Turks and Arabs are bowing 
down to Mecca in the midst of the confusion ; Jewish mer- 
chants are bartering their wares ; native peddlers are crying 
the merits of their glittering trinkets ; bakers are shouting 
from their bread stands ; hucksters from their tables of figs, 
cheese, and sausages ; fruiterers from out of baskets of grapes ; 
coffee-carriers running about madly with large tin urns, heat- 
ed by red-hot coals, shrieking the charms of muddy coffee ; 
grave Persians and pale Armenians gliding silently and with 
ghostly solemnity through the crowd — all touched, you would 
say, on some point — a little cracked about the affairs of life, 
just like the rest of us. 

At last, after getting lost a dozen times in the narrow 
streets, you enter a dark arched way. much as you would 
enter a cavern, with a lurking suspicion of an attack from a 
horde of banditti. This is the beginning of the famous bazaars 
of Stamboul. What a strange place it is, and how utterly im- 
possible to give any adequate description of it on paper ! All 
the pages that have ever been written on the subject fail to 
give a correct notion of these bazaars ; either too much is ex- 
pected or too little — any thing but the strange reality. A 
single glance at such a scene is worth all the pictures that 
pen or pencil has ever drawn ; it dwells forever in the mem- 
ory, with the vividness of a first impression ; it is beyond the 
ornament of language or the glowing colors of art ; it is fixed 
indelibly upon the brain, and rises unbidden before the eye 
throughout the future, in all its wondrous variety of lights, 
shadows, costumes, and glittering wares ; in every thought 
of the glorious East it is the embodiment of the East itself. 
It must not be supposed, however, that there is any thing 
very magnificent about these bazaars — any thing to compete 
hi splendor with the shops of the Palais Royal or the Arcades 



138 



A CRUSADE IX THE EAST. 



of Paris — it is their peculiar novelty, the semi-barbarous pro- 
fusion of rich colors displayed at every point ; the theatrical 
effect of the costumes and manners ; the confusion of strange 
languages : the scents of musk and attar of roses that flit 
through the air. mingled with odd currents of smoke from the 
chiboucks and narguillas : the streams of light pouring down 
through holes in the roof relieving the darkness ; the endless 
variety of Oriental curiosities ; these it is that render the ba- 
zaars unique and wonderful, not to be compared to any thing 
except other bazaars, of which there are few in the East 
so interesting as those of Stamboul. 

Y\ e must come over again and look more into the details. 
At present we have only time to make a small purchase, as a 
sort of evidence to our friends at the Byzant that this tour has 
really been achieved before breakfast. It is a pretty trifle, 
air embroidered something manufactured of silk, which will 
be very acceptable to a certain fair person — a nice little 
present from the bazaars of Stamboul. 




SHOP KEEPERS. 

A grave eld man. with a tremendous turban on his head, 
and a long chibouk in his mouth, sits bundled up among his 



A VISIT TO THE BAZAARS. 



precious fabrics, totally indifferent to the matter of customers , 
in fact rather averse to any interruption, for he happens tc 
be listening to a story about some ghouls and genii, which a 
neighbor is relating at the time. In the next bazaar every 
body seems to be asleep ; though they are all bright enough 
when they hear the voice of a traveling gentleman ; so bright 
mdeed, that in a few moments half a dozen sharp-witted 
youths are after you from the immediate vicinity,, telling you. 
to "Come dis way; no good bazaar dat ; bess bazaar dis 
way; plenty nice ting sheep/' This eventually arouses the 
old gentleman, and he looks up, with a patronizing air ; per- 
haps he might be prevailed upon to sell you something. 
You are determined not to trust yourself to the sharp-witted 
fellows who are pulling at your elbow. The indifference of 
the venerable gentleman piques you ; besides you know he 
must be honest. — " Kats groshV' you ask, taking up the art- 
icle carelessly. Something in the shape of an answer is grunt- 
ed by the old man ; of course you can't have the faintest idea 
of the meaning, the language being Turkish, or Arabic, or 
some other barbarous compound of guttural sounds. " Kats 
grosh?''' you say again, a little louder. The old man takes 
a puff of his chibouck, and raises up ten fingers, and shakes 
them at you four times. It must be forty piasters, or forty 
dollars. You draw out a piaster, and demand in plain En- 
glish if he means to say that it requires forty of these to pur- 
chase the article ? The old gentleman nods assent. Two 
dollars seems high for such a trifle. You shake your ten 
ringers at him three times, which means thirty piasters. 
<l Bosh. r ' says the merchant, with a contemptuous toss of 
the head, and he coolly resumes his chibouck. As you turn to 
walk off he beckons you back, takes up the silk, points out 
all its beauties, grows eloquent upon its peculiar merits, en- 
larges in the most barbarous tissue of exclamations upon its 
cost, all of which you have to suppose, not understanding a 
single word he says. Eventually he concludes by shaking his 
ten fingers at you three times and five fingers once, signifying 
thirty-five. You shake back at him three fingers less, upon 
which you are determined to stand. No, it will not do ; the 



140 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



old Turk stands on two, and the purchase can't be made foi 
the sixteenth part of a little finger less. Off you start again, 
and this time you don't turn to look back. "Hallo! come 
back here!" shouts the old man, as plainly as possible in 
Turkish ; and now he goes through an imaginary process of 
cutting his fore-finger in two. No, sir, you exclaim ; not the 
first knuckle of a fore-finger more ! The half of the fore-finger 
is resigned at last ! the article is yours ; and with a proud con- 
sciousness of shrewdness and self-dependence, you pocket it, 
and set out for Pera. Experience aids you greatly this time 
in wending your way through the narrow streets ; a few knocks 
on the head and the loss of a little bark from the knee are 
trifles not to be thought of. By patience, perseverance, and the 
sweet oil of a good temper, you at length reach the Hotel de 
Byzant. Breakfast has just commenced, the purchase is duly 
exhibited, and extravagantly admired by the ladies ; the price 
is miraculously low ; it must have required extraordinary 
jewing "to get it so cheap. It is passed round for the final 
judgment of a grave gentleman who understands these things 
thoroughly. Heavens ! what a grim smile of pity and con- 
tempt ; your beautiful specimen of Turkish skill is worth j ust 
ten piasters, and has been manufactured in Paris, where such 
things can be bought for little or nothing ! 



CHAPTER XVI. 



TURKISH BEAUTIES. 

There has been such a halo of romance thrown around the 
whole East by a certain class of writers who see every thing 
through highly-colored spectacles, with bubbles in the centre, 
that the idea of a Harem is enough to set one off in ecstasies. 
"Who is there with a spark of enthusiasm that can approach 
Constantinople for the first time without a palpitating heart 
and a thrilling anticipation of something extraordinary, some- 
thing to lift up the soul above this earth to a realm of houris ? 
The essence of all that one has ever read on the subject comes 
bubbling up through the memory, and gives rise to the most 
visionary aspirations for the beautiful. All the fervid imagery 
of Lalla Hookh ; the fascinating splendor of Anastasius ; the 
glowing eloquence of Eothen, fill the mind somehow or other 
with extraordinary anticipations ; a glimmering of something 
unearthly ; a foreshadowing of Paradise. The Harem becomes 
a chief ornament in this Paradise, and the perfumes of flow- 
ers, and the cooling spray of fountains, and all the witchery 
of beauty and innocence reclining on soft Persian rugs, invol- 
untary crowd upon the senses. Every yashmack is supposed 
to cover the features of a G-ulbeyez or a Dudu ; every grated 
window to shed light upon an inner world of beauty, the 
living and breathing realization of that voluptuous picture 
in Don Juan, of the sleeping beauties of the Harem, where 
innocent maidens dream of apples, and bees, and butterflies, 
and such things. Never was an unfortunate admirer, of the 
sex worked up to such a pitch of enthusiastic expectation 
as your friend of the present writing. It was a purely Pla- 
tonic devotion to beauty, of course. The first thought upon 



142 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



touching the romantic soil of Stamboul was of yashmacks, 
and dark flashing eyes, and forms of angelic contour. For 
a while I thought seriously of shutting my eyes the very 
first petticoat I should descry fluttering in the breeze ; but 
eyes are indispensable where the hamil are continually bring- 
ing their battering rams to bear on one's head. At last a 
bevy of chattering damsels loomed up in the distance bearing 
down toward me. Good gracious, what voices ! The croak- 
ing of ravens would have been music to the coarse masculine 
sounds that distracted my ear. It was the most barbarous 
gobbling of gutturals I have ever heard. Black eyes there 
were, to be sure, black enough all round, even underneath ; 
which was rather a dirty sort of blackness. The yashmacks 
dropped accidentally, as they generally do when the observer 
is a Frank, and there are no Turks near. Every vestige of 
enchantment vanished in a moment. There was not a single 
passable face in the crowd. The features were coarse and 
sensual ; the teeth disgustingly dark ; the costume slovenly 
and unbecoming. As if conscience-smitten, after having ex- 
posed so much beauty to infidel eyes, they hastily drew the 
covering over their mouths, leaving the upper part of the face 
partially visible and altogether denuding the breast. After 
they had passed I turned to enjoy a different view, in the faint 
hope of discovering some compensating attraction. The case 
was now still worse. As they drew up their loose cloaks, and 
gathered around them sundry highly-colored and tawdry rags 
of drapery, the names of which it is impossible to remember, 
their bare legs glistened underneath, buried over the ankle in 
yellow slip-shod boots and slippers ; and they waddled over 
the rough stones very much like a parcel of ducks, making 
such awkward attempts at progress that it was quite distress- 
ing to see them. Surely the Turkish boots for females must 
have been devised by some clever fellow, who had in view 
the impossibility of their running away in them. 

It would be unfair, perhaps, to judge of the whole sex from 
these specimens ; so I reserved my final judgment until I 
should see something more of Turkish beauty. Since then J 
have seen every variety that can be seen beyond the sacred 

i 



TURKISH BEAUTIES. 



143 



precincts of the Harem, from the highest to the lowest, and 
I must confess that I have seen very little to change my orig- 
inal impression. What there may be concealed in cages and 
fed on cakes and rose water, and never suffered to be rudely 
kissed by the air that common mortals breathe, I do not 
know from personal experience, having never been in the 
domestic circle of a Turk in my life, when the ladies were 
present ; nor do I anticipate that pleasure soon, unless my 
friend, Abd-ul-Mejid, should take it into his head to invite 
me to a family tea-party, which is not likely. Let it not be 
supposed, however, that I entertain any hostile feeling toward 
the ladies of Constantinople. There is occasionally a pretty 
face to be seen, a young, round, doll-baby thing, that is very 
much admired by the Turks ; nice plump little toys, with 
black eyebrows and thick lashes, soft peachy cheeks, and 
the softest possible expression. I saw one on the bridge near 
Galata that quite struck a ten- 
derness through me. She was 
about fifteen, and as prettily cos- 
tumed as a Turkish lady' can be 
without a change of fashion. 
Dropping the white vail that 
covered her mouth as I passed, 
she gave me a good opportunity 
of admiring her bewitching feat- 
ures, and to be candid, they were 
very bewitching. The form of 
her face was round, like a full 
moon ; her complexion of the 
purest transparency, just tinged 
with the roseate hue of health ; 
her nose small and round, mak- 
ing a very beautiful natural di- 
vision between her cheeks ; her eyes — but here was the kill- 
ing attraction — they were so large and wide open, so deeply, 
beautifully black, so gazelle-like in their innocence of expres- 
sion, or lack of expression ; so indicative of a repose of soul, or 
unconsciousness of soul ; so hedged around with black lashes 




TURKISH BEAUTY. 



144 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



and eyebrows, or black paint, that made the very darkness 
there more beautiful than light elsewhere ; so liquid with nat- 
ural tear-drops, or the glare of the sun ; these, these it was that 
brought on the tenderness ; these, and the lips which were 
parted with a smile of triumph, and looked as if they had just 
been kissed by the breath of a frosty morning, or bathed in twi- 
light dews, or sweetened with a stick of candy, which she hap- 
pened to be sucking at the moment ; and her form ! it was so 
round and soft, and shook so like jelly at every step ! But it 
is entirely useless to undertake a description of her undulating 
walk : it was the very poetry of motion ; rolling in her yellow 
boots as gracefully as ever rolled a Dutch galliot in the trades. 
Mashalla ! I saw no more that day. 

The Armenian women are very much superior in personal 
beauty to any I have seen in Constantinople ; indeed, to any 
of the Oriental castes, not excepting the far-famed Circassians. 
The best specimens of the latter that I had the fortune to see 
were gross and expressionless in feature, and without that 
compactness and elasticity of form which the more civilized 
world has assumed to be essential in female beauty. A cer- 
tain obesity, very attractive to semi-barbarous people, is cul- 
tivated to perfection in the Circassians, and the most highly 
admired seemed to be those who bear the greatest resemblance 
to a balloon, and who are least capable of exercising the 
powers of locomotion. The Armenians, however, are tall and 
graceful, and of much greater delicacy of feature, and in form 
they approximate more nearly than any I have seen to what 
has been assumed by common consent as the standard of per- 
fection. I saw many in my rambles about the heights of 
Chamlula who were really fine looking women ; their dark 
hair twisted loosely under their head-dress ; their complexion 
of the most delicate texture ; their eyes bright and not alto- 
gether expressionless, fringed with long black lashes ; and their 
forms showing to advantage in a costume resembling what 
certain of the fair sex at home have attempted to force into 
fashion in our matter-of-fact part of the world. And here, by 
way of parenthesis, let me hope that, should that costume 
prevail, it will never be followed by any attempt to introduce 



TURKISH BEAUTIES. 



145 



other Oriental fashions, such as smoking the chibouck and 
sharing in domestic circles the same husband. 

The life of these inmates of the Harem has been delineated 
by writers who have had access to their society ; but it has 
been done in such a way as to throw a halo of romance around 
them which has no foundation in reality. I have conversed 
with many intelligent Frank residents of Constantinople on 
the subject, and have been assured that these accounts of the 
innocent and luxurious seclusion in which they spend their 
lives are in the main a tissue of absurdities, gotten up by 
enthusiastic authors for the purpose of making readable books. 
Such books are sought with avidity, where the plain truth 
would make no impression. People are determined to feed 
the imagination upon something, and those who furnish them 
with the material are naturally disposed to make it as palat- 
able as possible. The fact is, life in the Harem is one of 
absolute servitude and disgusting sensuality. Few, even in 
the highest ranks, understand how to read and write, and 
their conversation is only trifling inanity. They are purchased 
as slaves, treated as slaves, and valued according to their 
capacity to reach the most approved standard of degradation. 
Encouraged in all that is revolting to the better feeling of 
man's nature, is it to be wondered that they do not occupy the 
position of companions. It may be set down as an ^xiom, 
demonstrated by all past experience, that in no country where 
the position of woman is so utterly degraded can a people 
ever attain to a more exalted rank than that of a slavish and 
semi-barbarous nation. Abd-ul-]\Iejid may build Ligates, 
encourage steam navigation and cotton factories, patronize 
model farms, surround his court with all the enlightening 
influences of foreign diplomacy ; listen to disinterested plans 
for increasing the power and prosperity of the Turkish people ; 
but until he leams the great secret that women must be com- 
panions, and not mere toys, his efforts, or the efforts of others, 
will be in vain ; and the mass of the Turks will remain as" 
they have ever been, an ignorant and slavish people. 

It has been my fortune to travel in many foreign lands, 
and to mingle with many strange people as a spectator of 

G 



146 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



passing events ; and now, after years of wandering in almost 
every clime, I turn from the sad contemplation of their social 
condition with a grateful heart to our own free and happy 
country ; where, amid all the turmoils of political strife, all 
the asperities of opinion upon matters of local import, all the 
differences of position that arise from the natural differences 
of our organization, there is a purity of sentiment in social 
life that has never obtained in any other country. It is re- 
freshing, after inhaling the polluted atmosphere of the prin- 
cipal cities of Europe, to look back upon our own happy 
homes and firesides, and draw health, and vigor, and inspira- 
tion from a contemplation of the exalted condition of woman 
in America — subject to no restraints but the dictates of vir- 
tue, free in the exercise of all the rights that are claimed by 
the best and purest of the sex ; respected because they com- 
mand respect ; beloved because they are womanly ; admired 
because they are too modest to demand admiration. It is not 
of the giddy and the thoughtless, who parade their jeweled 
charms in the arena of fashion ; not of the brawlers in pub- 
lic, who seek to overturn the whole fabric of society ; not of 
them that are given to unseemly display, either of thought or 
person, that I would speak ; but of the chaste keepers of 
home ; of the gentle and the sympathizing, who rejoice with 
them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep ; these 
are the women of America, who, unknown to fame, are es- 
teemed the highest ; who, unadorned, are adorned the most. 

During my rambles about Constantinople and the suburbs, 
my attention was frequently attracted by the strange and di- 
lapidated appearance of the Mohammedan burial-grounds. 
Much of the beautiful effect of the view from the Bosphorus 
arises from the groves of tall green cypress that mingle their 
foliage with the mosques and minarets, and stand out in bold 
relief on every hill-side. ' Wherever they cover any consider- 
able extent of ground, it is to afford shade and protection to 
a public cemetery. The largest, perhaps, of all the Moham- 
medan burial-grounds is that near Scutari, on the Asiatic 
side, which extends over a distance of three miles along the 
road. It is beautifully shaded by a thick forest of cypress, 



TURKISH BEAUTIES. 



147 



and forms, in the summer time, a favorite retreat for the idle 
and gossiping, who go over in great numbers from the city 
every afternoon. Here may be seen, in fine weather, groups 
of women of various castes sitting on the graves, smoking 
their chiboucks, and sipping their coffee ; others, half-naked, 
chattering and lively, endeavoring to kill time ; all unattend- 
ed, except by female servants, for it is beneath the dignity of 
the male population ever to associate in public with women. 
It is a curious picture of gay, fluttering life, mingled with the 
mouldering tombs of the silent and ghastly dead. Often, 
when disposed to indulge in reflection, I come over here to 
read the history of Time's doings, past, present, and to come ; 
Time, who has brought low alike the great and the little, 
the Pasha and the slave ; who makes republics beneath the 
ground that factions can not destroy ; Time, who opens the 
mysteries of the future, and " feeds oblivion with decay of 
things." 

The Mohammedan tombstones are distinguished, for the 
most part, by a head or representation of the turban carved 
in stone. Many of these have been broken off or greatly de- 
faced during the wars which have raged from time to time 
between the tribes of the East. The inscriptions are in the 
Arabic or Turkish characters, and in the more modern tombs 
are often covered with gilding. Of course, I could read none 
of these histories of human virtues and human sorrows, but 
it is not likely that I lost a great deal of reliable information. 
The whole aspect of these cemeteries is desolate and ruinous 
m the extreme. There is no order or arrangement, except in 
the direction of the heads, which are all toward Mecca ; the 
head-stones seem to be scattered over the ground at random, 
pointed up in all directions, or lying prostrate in confusion. 
The earth is perfectly barren, and abounds in all sorts of 
abominations, too disgusting even for the gangs of voracious 
dogs that prowl among the abodes of the dead. It is a strange 
place, in every respect, to choose as a fashionable resort for 
pleasure and gossip ; but, as the Turks say, in the name of 
the Prophet, may they enjoy themselves. 

There are other places of amusement, chiefly resorted to in 



148 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



the summer by the wealthier classes. Among these are the 
Sweet Waters of Europe, and the Sweet Waters of Asia, the 
villages of the Bosphorus, the Isles of the Princes, and various 
places in the country, within a few miles of the city. Steam- 
ers now ply all along the shores of the Bosphorus, to the 
Prince's Isles, to the seaport town nearest to Brusa, and othei 
ports along the Sea of Marmora. There are also, for the 
poorer classes, large omnibus caiques, in which, for a few 
paras, they can be landed at any village on the Bosphorus, 
from the Golden Horn to Bayukdere. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



Being depressed in spirits to-day, in consequence of a bad 
opera last night, I am going to be serious and give you a 
chapter on dogs. Doubtless you will think, after the essay 
I intend to give you on Parisian and Italian lap-dogs, that I 
am predisposed to hydrophobia, and labor under a prejudice 
against the canine species ; but this is not so. The fact is, 
I was bitten in my younger days by a perfectly sane dog, 
without the slightest provocation ; and ever since, I have 
taken a personal interest in the study of the entire race. Be- 
sides, the dogs of Constantinople are a legitimate part of the 
population. Without them it would be no longer Constanti- 
nople. They are as much a part of it as the mosques, or the 
Turks, the Armenians, or the bazaars. Dogs are here pro- 
tected by public sentiment, or some superstition, or by law ; 
so they swarm in immense numbers : they do not belong to 
any body, but roam in freedom, enjoying the fullest immu- 
nity from molestation. Travelers generally set them down as 
the great nuisances of the East, and heap unmeasured abuse 
upon every cur that dares to bark his sentiments. This is 
unjust ; they might as well abuse the Turks for wearing 
beards and worshiping Mohammed, as denounce the poor dogs 
for showing hostility toward Christians. Now, for my part, 
I consider them an extraordinary race of animals, in spite of 
the prejudices of education, and especially those of Constan- 
tinople, and I intend to do them justice. Throughout the 
streets, and in all the grave-yards and public places, the at- 
tention of the strangel is attracted by the extraordinary num- 
ber of wo 1 fish-looking dogs that he sees prowling about 01 



150 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



basking in the sun, and in some of the narrow passages he is 
often compelled to step over whole families of them. These 
animals abound in every quarter, Frank, Jewish, Armenian 
and Turkish, and are formed into communities like their two- 
legged neighbors. Certain invisiblelines determine the extent 
of territory belonging to each community, and so distinctly 
defined are these boundaries, that every member, down to the 
most illiterate cur, knows precisely how far he can venture, 
and what his inherent rights are. But let it not be supposed 
that dogs are more sensible than men ; they have their ter- 
ritorial disputes as well as human beings, and very much on 
the same general principle. A strong community crowds over 
into the possessions of a weaker one ; a quarrel ensues, and 
whichever cur can maintain the disputed territory by force of 
teeth and paws, holds it till some stronger one interferes and 
settles the difficulty by dispossessing both the others. There 
are various minor grades of difficulty between these canine 
communities, petty infringements upon the rights of others, 
such as cases of trespass, prowling beyond the lines in search 
of food, snatching up bones and the like, just as with us; but 
these infractions of the law are settled at once, which makes 
justice more terrible to evil-doers, and costs less in the way of 
fees to sheriffs, courts, and lawyers. The community fights 
its battles and defends its rights, punishes offenders within its 
own limits, and commits depredations upon others, very much 
after the fashion of the most respectable human communities ; 
but I never knew an instance of one dog giving a bone to an- 
other for arguing a case, or of two dogs involved in a private 
quarrel drawing upon the resources of the community to com- 
pensate them, or pay the expenses of an appeal to a higher 
tribunal. I am not prepared to say what religious doctrines 
these dogs of Constantinople entertain, but they have a very 
pious hostility to all Franks, and bark or growl at Christians 
' ast as we do at the Mohammedans and other Oriental sects ; 
and I have no doubt they are quite as firmly convinced that 
not one of us will reach heaven, as we are that the gates wili 
be closed against all who disbelieve in our doctrines. We are 
good haters of other sects, and why should the dogs be con- 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



151 



demned for trying to be human ? If they hate with a bigoted 
cordiality, yet they love with a barbarous sincerity. 

Opposite to the Hotel de Byzant is an open space, inhabit- 
ed by one of these canine communities, whose operations of 
domestic and municipal economy afford me constant food for 
study. Near by is a Mohammedan grave-yard, inhabited by 
another tribe ; and it is my chief employment, every after- 
noon, to sit on the portico, smoking a chibouck, and watching 
the movements of my four-legged neighbors. I have formed 
quite an attachment for the Byzantines, and a bitter preju 
dice against those sneaking fellows beyond, who skulk behind 
the tomb-stones. We of the Byzant region — for I have fought 
for them, and am now treated as a member of the commu- 
nity, and always received with a general wagging of tails — 
we, Byzantines, depend chiefly for our living upon the offal 
cast out from a range of houses just beyond the boundary. 
True, this is not strictly our property, but we consider that it 
ought to be ; and so whenever a bone, or a mutilated cat, or 
defunct chicken, is thrown out, we are startled from our sun- 
ny corners and daily slumbers by the little curs that we keep 
to wake us ; and, headed by the shaggy old veterans, who 
have fought their way to eminence, we sally forth in a body 
to seize our prey. Domestic difficulties ensue ; hungry drones, 
who are the first to run, want more than their share, and 
scuffles take place, which arouse the scouts of the enemy 
Now from every tomb-stone there springs a barking foe ; the 
grave-yard re-echoes with the call to arms ; big dogs and lit- 
tle dogs rush furiously into battle array; and down they thun 
der in terrible force upon the fighting Byzantines, in an ava- 
lanche of dust. One universal yell of rage and defiance rends 
the welkin; the smoke of battle rises on high, and for a while 
nothing is seen but a cloud of dust, and nothing heard but the 
gritting of teeth and the tug of strife at close quarters. It is 
a moment of awful suspense. Shall it be victory and chicken, 
or defeat without chicken ? The noble Byzantines or the 
skulking Tombers ? Now there is a swaying to and fro of 
the struggling mass — tails begin to appear through the dust ; 
the wounded rush out and skulk off, panting, to places of 



152 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



temporary safety. Individual foes, twisted up in motral strife, 
tumble out and roll together on the blood-stained field ; cow- 
ards hover round in the outer circle, snapping at unguarded 
legs ; and thieves sneak off with portions of the prey, and eat 
them behind the tomb-stones while the battle is raging. At 
last superior numbers prevail against desperate courage. Alas 
for the Byzantines! The Tombers drive them yelling beyond 
the lines. They rally and re-rally their exhausted forces, but 
it won't do ; they are morally and physically vanquished — 
the chicken is gone, and the maimed and the dying skulk 
off, licking their wounds. Flushed with victory, the Tombers 
follow up to the very door-steps of the Byzant, and defile the 
sacred temple of the Byzantines. Do you suppose I can sit 
quietly, with a stick in my hand, and witness this crowning 
insult ? Not I — to the rescue ! to the rescue ! On, Byzan- 
tines, on ! Away we go ! Down go the Tombers before a 
volley of sticks and stones, and we chase the flying foe into 
the very secret recesses of the grave-yard. Hurra for the 
Byzantines ! Victory is ours at last ; and for the rest of that 
day the Tombers are a crest-fallen set. Many a human bat- 
tle has been decided in the same way, and why shouldn't we 
feel proud of our victories as well as others ? 




GENERAL VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



153 



But enough of dogs. I am going to be terribly in earnest 
now, like Mr. Macready in Othello, and tell you about the 
dancing dervishes. Of the religious belief entertained by this 
singular sect I can give you no account. It is to their strange 
ceremonies that I wish to introduce you at present. Not far 
from the Hotel de Byzant is one of the temples or churches 
of the dancing dervishes ; a low building without much 
ornament, situated back from the street in a court ; and here 
once or twice a week strangers are permitted to witness the 
ceremonies. No entrance fee is required, and all sects are 
admitted without distinction of costume or nation ; subject 
only to rules of good order and the customary prohibition of 
boots and shoes beyond the door. It was on a day of more 
than ordinary importance that I had the fortune to witness 
this curious exhibition. We had formed a large party of 
Frank travelers at the hotel, and all went together. At the 
door we took off our shoes, and those who had slippers were 
allowed to wear them, and those who had none were permit- 
ted to stand in their stockings. A servant in* attendance 
showed us into the quarter allotted to the Franks : there 
were other quarters occupied by a miscellaneous crowd of 
natives. The hall, or place of worship is a large circular 
room, with an arched roof hung around with lamps, and the 
galleries for the spectators extend all around on the same 
floor, with a railing in front and a foot-board, as in a circus. 
All the decorations, were of the plainest and cheapest kind, 
and the hall itself was entirely without furniture, the floor being 
of polished wood, quite bare of carpets. When we entered, a 
din of wild barbarous music, from some invisible place, reached 
us, and soon the priests of the order entered, walking slowly 
two by two, preceded by the patriarch, an old man with a 
long white beard. They were enveloped in plain brown 
cloaks, leaving nothing visible but their tall drab-colored hats 
without brims, and a small portion of the face and beard ; 
their heads were bowed down, and they walked with a solemn 
and impressive air several times round the hall — the music 
waxing wilder and fiercer all the time. 

At length the patriarch stopped ; the priests or worshipers 



154 A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 

* 

branched off, and, ranging themselves round the room, sat 
down and covered up their heads, leaving nothing but their 
hats visible, and, doubling themselves up into as small a 
space as possible, remained so for some time quite motionless. 
After this, at a signal from the patriarch, who was bowing 
down and praying all the time, they slowly arose, and while 
he stood at the head of the hall with folded hands and down- 
cast head, each worshiper as he passed turned and bowed to 
the one in the rear, who bowed at the same time, bringing 
their heads almost to meet in front of the patriarch ; and so 
they continued, each one bowing as he passed, till the whole 
party had bowed themselves through, three or four times in 
succession. They then ranged themselves round the hall 
again in their respective places, and, slowly casting off their 
cloaks, appeared in the dancing costume — a plain suit of 
white cotton, consisting of petticoats and a kind of roundabout, 
fastened at one side by the sash. No shoes were worn, and 
the tall strange hat still remained on the head ; and now the 
music blew louder and wilder, and the dance commenced 
Slowly and gracefully they merge into it, twirling around like 
the wooden figures on a hand-organ. The arms are extend- 
ed, the hands thrown cnt, the feet together as if on a pivot, 
and round and round they go, with their long beards, and pale 
faces, and downcast eyes, whirling on their feet like men 
worked by machinery — all but the old patriarch, who stands 
at the head with folded hands, and prays during the ceremony 
of the waltz with his accustomed gravity. From the outer 
circle they whirl mysteriously into the centre, and from the 
centre back again ; and soon the entire hall seems to be alive 
with the solemn waltzers. There is no noise but the blowing 
of the music and the low grinding of the feet. One almost 
wonders what powers of locomotion keep these men whirling 
around so long. They seem never to be tired ; the spectator 
grows dizzy in following them. Round they go, with dis- 
tended arms and sweeping petticoats, till you begin to think 
it must be all a strange vision, the grotesque dream of a dis- 
tempered fancy. You rub your eyes and look again. Sure 
enough there they are, turning like tops — the very dancing 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



155 



dervishes that you have read about in books ; and this is 
their temple — a wild, half-savage, Oriental place, full of novel 
sights and sounds. At last the waltz is concluded ; the 
priests retire to their places, put on their cloaks, and double 
themselves up in little knots again ; and, after another parade 
and the same profound ceremony of bowing before the patriarch 
they^slowly retire ; the audience follows their example ; and 
thus ends the devout exhibition of the dancing dervishes. 




There is another sect, called the howling dervishes, who 
hold their exhibitions over at Scutari, on the Asiatic side. 
On my return from the Mount of Chamlula one day, I step- 
ped in to see them, in company with my Portuguese friends 
Dr. Mendoza and the Madam. The temple or house of wor- 
ship is much the same as that of the dancing dervishes. 
Here we had to pay a small fee of a few piasters for admis- 
sion, the ceremony being considered more attractive than that 
of the dancers. Nothing was said about our shoes, and we 
were ushered at once into the gallery allotted to Christian 
spectators. The exhibition had just commenced. Thirty or 
forty young howlers, from six years of age up to twenty-five, 
were ranged around the outer circle. At the head stood the 
chief priest, and in different parts of the hall the elders and 
common priests. The old patriarchs, who were unable to 



156 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



join in the violent exercises of the church, were seated in re- 
tired places, where they bowed their heads with a slow and 
clock-like motion, and chanted a kind of hum-drum song like 
the bass notes of an organ. In front of the chief priest stood 
a row of lusty fellows, with shaven heads and nearly naked, 
who bore the heaviest part in the performance. Commenc- 
ing at a high key, rendered more piercing by the shrill voices 
of the little children, they screamed a sort of chant, so wild 
and unearthly that it was difficult to recognize them as 
human beings ; a Ld the whole fraternity started into motion 
as if struck with a palsy- Gracious heavens, what a sight ! 
A menagerie of wild animals let loose would be tame to it. I 
can compare it to nothing but a bedlam of hopping and howl- 
ing lunatics. First on one foot, then on the other, the shaven 
heads bobbing as a schoolboy bobs his head after a dive when 
he gets a bubble in his ear ; all bobbing together, and nodding 
and jerking and jumping and hopping like gigantic puppets 
worked by secret wires ; the high scream gradually lowering 
to a groan, and the groan jogging down by degrees into a 
grunt, and the grunt into a general howl, so deep and savage 
that the snarling of hyenas or the roaring of lions would 
be music to it. The lusty gang in front, work themselves 
into a phrensy ; their shaven crowns jerk about at such a 
rate that one expects to see a head roll down on the floor 
every moment ; their voices lose all semblance of human 
voices, and now it becomes a hoarse panting grunt from the 
pits of their stomachs, and streams of sweat roll down from 
their faces, and their scanty cotton robes hang dripping on 
their bodies. Through the wriggling, jerking mass you see a 
little howler who has hopped and howled himself out of 
breath ; his head hangs on his shoulder, his eyes rolling, and 
his tongue hanging out while he gasps for breath ; an old 
priest gives him a smart crack on the pate with his knuckles, 
and he starts into motion again as if suddenly galvanized, 
and the whole fraternity of little howlers are frightened into 
a fresh fit of hopping and bobbing and yelling. JNfow you 
detect a sly fellow in the crowd trying to cheat people with 
the idea that he is as zealous a worshiper as any of them ; 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



157 



but you can plainly see that he is an impostor or a backslid- 
er ; he only hops once in a while, when he thinks he is noticed, 
and howls so faintly that nobody can hear him, and, as to the 
jerking of his head, it is the mere nodding of a head in the 
act of taking a private nap. and requires no exertion except 
to keep up a show of wakefulness. Old men with long griz- 
zled beards sway to and fro. unable to hop, and too short of 
breath to howl ; but they keep up a bass growl, and with 
their deep blood-shot eyes and the restless sw^aying of the 
head, look not unlike polar bears standing upright. Still 
older men, unable to stand at all, sit upon their mats and 
sway and growl in concert. At last the voices have been 
jogged out of the sturdiest worshipers ; nothing is heard but 
the husky grating of the breath in the throat, and the hur- 
ried panting for air; and finally their chins fall loosely on 
their breasts, their tongues loll out, and all become motionless 
as statues. The chief priest thereupon makes a prayer, to 
which the most devout attention is paid. Not a whisper is 
heard till the prayer is concluded. F.or a moment a dead si- 
lence prevails. The whole congregation and all the worship- 
ers are mute and motionless. It is a most impressive pic- 
ture of rapt devotion. Barbarous the scene may be, but not 
devoid of solemnity. And now a low sobbing is heard 
around the hall of worship — so low at first that it seems to 
come from spirits in the air ; gradually it swells and spreads 
around till the whole crowd of dervishes are sobbing, and the 
sobs deepen into a low crying, and the low crying into a wild 
burst of grief, swelling and winding around the hall like a 
funeral wail. From every eye the big tears roll down, and 
the faces and breasts of the sobbing crowd are wet with 
weeping. So strong, indeed, is the influence of the melting 
mood, that, the wife of my Portuguese friend, who stood near 
me, covered her face with her handkerchief, and I verily be- 
lieve cried as hard as any of them. It was the most earnest 
crying I ever witnessed — so like natural weeping that I be- 
gan at length to feel moist about the eyes myself, and never 
in my life did I come so near bursting out into a regular cry. 
Five minutes more would have done it ; for, however ridicu- 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



159 



lous such exhibitions may appear, there is always something 
in believing people to be in earnest when they pray, and espe- 
cially when they cry, that touches one in a tender part. I 
am certain Alphonse de Lamartine would have opened the 
flood-gates of his tender heart, under a similar appeal to his 
sympathies, and deluged the whole place with tears. 

" Come," said the Doctor, taking the weeping Madam by 
the arm, " de Madam is a little indispose; he sue necess to 
proceed to de hotel. Dinner shall be ready. "lis imposs to 
remain longer." 

Thus closed the ceremony of the howling dervishes — a 
strange Oriental sight, strikingly picturesque and impressive, 
from which some idea may be formed of the state of civiliza- 
tion in the East, and some reflections suggested upon the 
state of civilization in certain parts of our own country. 

Learning that the Sultan was in the habit of making his 
exit once a week from some one of his palaces, and afford- 
ing the public an opportunity of seeing his sublime person on 
horseback or in the royal caique, while escorted by the offi- 
cers of his court to some mosque selected for the occasion, I 
walked down to Tophana yesterday to witness this grand cere- 
mony. There was quite a respectable array of republicans in 
our party to enjoy the novelty of this Suitanic display of grand- 
eur and condescension. On reaching the broad avenue be 
tween the palace and the gardens of the royal Harem we found 
it lined on both sides with officers and soldiers in all the pomp 
of court uniform, fezzed and brass-buttoned, sworded, tasseled, 
embroidered, and gilt, to the very climax of civilized Orient- 
alism. The military uniform of the present day in Constan- 
tinople is a sad falling off from the magnificence of the native 
costume under the earlier Sultans. Copying the Frank na- 
tions of Europe in all the inconveniences and absurdities of 
dress, the Turks are quite as awkward, and as much out of 
their element in tight-laced coats, stiff collars, and scanty 
trowsers, as the stifFest Englishman or most vivacious French- 
man would be in their loose flowing robes and dignified tur- 
bans ; and they have neither the smart elegance w r hich re- 
sults from good taste, even in what is objectionable, or the 



160 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



judgment to adopt only what is useful or convenient. The 
turban, which has been cast aside for the fez, had the double 
advantage of protecting the head and eyes from the glare of 
the sun, as also of forming a becoming termination to the 
figure ; but nothing can be more ridiculous than the skimpy 
red night-cap, called a fez, which now supplies its place. 
What can be expected of a people who wear such things on 
their heads ? How can they entertain any but mongrel no- 
tions, when their brains are subjected to the daily process of 
broiling ? If they were semi-barbarous under the turban, 
they are more than semi-imbecile under the fez. It must be 
admitted, however that the present display of military cos- 
tume and discipline was very much superior to what one or- 
dinarily sees about the military stations of Stamboul. The 
guards and officers seem to be carefully chosen, and in gen- 
eral appearance are not inferior to those of more civilized 
nations. 

Passing under the grated bridge which extends over the 
avenue connecting the gardens of the Harem with the palace, 
we entered a large open square in front of the mosque. The 
entire space was encircled by lines of soldiers, standing in 
readiness to receive the royal pageant. To the left, at a re- 
spectable distance, stood some few hundred native spectators, 
but owing to our dress, and perhaps a certain respect inspired 
for us by the daring manner in which our dragoman, Carlo, 
made room for us, we were permitted to stand behind a line 
of soldiers directly in front of the mosque. It wanted a 
quarter of twelve : the Sultan was to appear precisely at 
noon. During the interval four or five servants were busily 
engaged in sweeping down the steps upon which his High- 
ness was to ascend, and spreading thereupon rich cloths to 
be pressed by his royal feet. These were also carefully swept 
down two or three times in succession, so that not a speck 
should be left. By the time all this was accomplished there 
was a general stir, a lew murmur of awe and expectation. 
Nobody appeared to say any thing, or do any thing, or see 
any thing, but it was perfectly apparent that the great Abd- 
ul-Mejid was coming. There was an instinctive holding of 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



161 



breaths, and an anxious looking up the avenue toward the 
gates of the palace. And now the murmur of awe rises 
higher, the clatter of horses' feet is distinctly heard, the 
music strikes up, and out comes the sovereign Potentate of 
Turkey, mounted on a prancing steed, and surrounded by a 
legion of magnificent Pashas, likewise mounted on prancing 
steeds. Onward he comes, slowly and with solemn majesty. 
But his thoughts are on holy subjbcts, he looks neither to the 
right nor to the left, but straight toward the door of the 
mosque. A Sultan may condescend to bow before Allah and 
the Prophet, but he is too high a personage to bow to man ; 
hats are pulled off and heads nodded in vain. He pays no 
attention to the homage ; not even to us sovereigns, who have 
done him- the honor to stand bare-headed before him these 
ten minutes for the sake of enjoying the show unmolested by 
his minions ! The royal dress worn on this occasion was 
quite simple, consisting of ordinary European trow r sers, an 
embroidered Turkish coat, and a fez, with a cloak thrown 
loosely over the shoulders. His face is pale and careworn, 
his person emaciated, and his appearance altogether blase. 
People say that he is drugged and stupefied, for certain po- 
litical purposes ; and certainly, if ever a poor fellow bore the 
marks of premature decay and imbecility of mind resulting 
from excess, it is Abd-ul-Mejid. 

Now, all hail to Allah and the Prophet ! the Sultan has 
reached the door of the mosque. Bearded Pashas, glittering 
with buttons and gold lace, catch his bridle ; and bearded 
Pashas again catch him as he painfully dismounts. Slowly 
he ascends the steps upon the well-swept cloths — that aged 
young man of twenty-eight — supported on each side by a 
Pasha. A shout of joy and devotion rises on high ! Pashas, 
officers, soldiers and ail shout glory and honor to the Sultan ! 
Long life and happiness to Abd-ul-Mejid ! All hail to Allah 
and the Prophet, the sovereign Potentate of the East has gone 
to prayers ! Up goes the crier of the mosque on the highest 
minaret, and proclaims the important tidings to the world, 
" Allah akbar ! the sublimest of Sultans is at his devotion . 
God is great, and Mohammed is his Prophet !" 



162 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



For the space of half an hour there is silence in the outer 
world ; then comes forth the Sultan again, purified in body 
and soul. Again the bearded Pashas catch him in their 
arms, and help him on his horse. He is seated once more on 
the favored steed, still regardless of the crowd, a melancholy 
picture of resigned misery. The music strikes up, the royal 
pageant moves on, and Abd-ul-Mejid is borne back to his 
palace to receive the congratulations of his devoted followers 
and the caresses of his loving wives. 

Poor Abd-ul-Mejid ! Miserable Abd-ul-Mejid ! thou art 
an unhappy mouse, surrounded by cats ! Sir Catford Scran- 
ning is an experienced o]d mouser ; his eye is on you ; his 
claws are sharp ; his cunning surpasses your simple under- 
standing. Don't believe in him because he purrs in the pres- 
ence of the other cats. This very moment he would swallow 
you bodily if he dared ; but Sir Catford knows very well that 
the great Russian Tom Cat has bigger claws and sharpei 
teeth than himself; that when the swallowing commences he 
w T on't stand much chance in the scramble with Russian Tom. 
Sir Catford makes a great noise ; threatens you very often ; 
talks loudly about the prowess of British Cats : don't mind 
him Abdul ; he won't do you much harm ; he's getting old 
and likes to see himself in a rage; depend upon it "there's 
nothing in't." The Austrian and Russian party have you 
safe enough whenever they think proper to devour you ; there- 
tore take Sir Catford easy, and look well to the bigger cats. 

I went away from this exhibition a thoughtful man. That 
very morning I had been reading in an American paper a 
tirade in favor of disunion, a series of resolutions passed at 
some sectional convention. Never before had the complete 
madness of the proposition occurred to me. What was it 
proposed to do ? To annul the Confederacy of free States ; to 
abandon all the blessings of liberty because of a single evil ; 
to rush headlong from the highest eminence of prosperity and 
happiness that any nation upon earth has yet attained, into 
the dark abyss of anarchy and final despotism ; to crush with 
sacrilegious hands the Constitution that has been bequeathed 
to us by the truest, and purest, and wisest of patriots thai 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



163 



ever struggled for human rights and the perpetuity of human 
freedom and bury the glorious galaxy of stars too deep in 
degradation to excite the contempt of the pettiest despot that 
grovels beneath the ban of human hatred. It is not at home, 
surrounded by local influences, and blinded by the zeal of 
party, that we can appreciate the terrible immensity, the 
utter madness of this proposition. Go abroad, ye who would 
lightly cast away the priceless heritage of liberty, and stud} 
well the operation of other governments ; feel but for a singi\ 
day the crushing effects of religious intolerance and military 
despotism ; mingle with the suffering masses that no longei 
breathe their woes, but hope against hope in the very darkness 
of despair ; behold the misery that you would bring upon the 
heads of a happy and prosperous people, and ask yourselves, 
Is it well to talk of disunion ? Roam from the North to the 
South ; linger among the mouldering monuments of the past : 
ponder over the power and the weakness of man, what he has 
been, what he might be, and what he is ; behold the fairest 
lands that ever breathed the charm of romance over the pages 
of history now waste and desolate ; look back from out the 
gloom of human depravity upon your own free and happy 
country, rising to the zenith of its prosperity, spreading its 
genial influences over the whole face of the earth ; and say, 
would you be no longer a nation of freemen ? Would you 
aspire to a page in future history as that people who have 
fallen lower than ever yet man has fallen ? 

Whatever may be the evils under which we labor at home, 
let us hope that they are but temporary ; they are dust in the 
balance compared with the evils that afflict the nations of 
Europe. Let us bear them patiently, and look to the healing 
influences of time for the remedy. Above all, let us never 
cease to cherish, in the deepest recesses of our hearts, the 
memory of those immortal men who have bequeathed to us 
the blessings of an enlightened and liberal system of govern- 
ment. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



BABEL REVIVED. 



The great variety of languages spoken throughout the 
East, but especially in Smyrna and Constantinople, is one 
of the first things that excites the astonishment of the stran- 
ger. Pera is a perfect Babel for languages. It is not uncom 
mon to hear the same person speak in six different tongues , 
and I am told that there are some who speak as many as 
twelve. Our dragoman (Carlo, whose information, however, 
must be received with a grain of allowance) tells me that 
there are some sixty or seventy different castes in Constanti- 
nople and the suburbs. I have myself seen about the wharves 
of G-alata, Turks, Persians, Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, 
Arabs, Egyptians, Algerines, Greeks, Italians, French, Ger- 
mans, Poles, Austrians, Russians, Cossacks, English, and 
Americans, and I can not remember how many others. It 
is evident that the number of Oriental castes, leaving out the 
Franks of Eastern Europe, who can not properly be classed 
with them, must be very great. No person of any distinction 
m society here is considered ordinarily accomplished who does 
not speak at least four languages in addition to his own. A 
knowledge of the Turkish, Greek, Italian, and French is al- 
most indispensable in all business transactions ; and there are 
few merchants who do not speak in addition to these, tolera- 
bly good English. The business men of Pera and Galata 
display this extraordinary talent in the highest degree — the 
Greeks, perhaps, more than any. Of the relative facility 
with which the various languages of Southern Europe and 
the East are acquired, say by an American or Englishman, 
[ am inclined, from all I could ascertain, to put them down 



BABEL REVIVED. 



163 



as follows: French first; everybody learns French, as a mat- 
ter of course. The Italian is more difficult, because of the 
great variety of terminations to the same word, and the ex- 
traordinary number of conventional phrases ; it is one of the 
easiest to acquire to a certain extent, so far as to answer the 
ordinary purposes of traveling ; the pronunciation is simple ; 
but it is one of the most difficult to become master of, so 
as to read Dante, Petrarch, and all the great poets. Many 
who speak it fluently in ordinary conversation, can not even 
translate a paragraph from a newspaper. The Spanish is of 
more difficult pronunciation, but less arbitrary in its construc- 
tion. In two years, any person of ordinary capacity can, oy 
study and constant practice in the society of the native pop- 
ulation, speak these three languages fluently. The modern 
Greek is more difficult, and requires a much longer time to 
be acquired. The Turkish is not considered difficult, com- 
pared with other Oriental languages. To carry on an ordin- 
ary conversation requires no great study ; but to speak and 
write it grammatically, and especially on any but common 
colloquial topics, is altogether another matter ; it is then one 
of the most difficult. The Persian is considered the richest 
and most beautiful, and at the same time one of the most 
difficult. The Arabic is the study of a life-time. So many 
new sounds are necessary to be mastered, such a complexity 
of grammatical rules overcome, that none need hope to acquire 
even such proficiency as to read and speak it at all in less 
than five or six years ; and it is seldom or never spoken by a 
foreigner with the fluency of the native Arabs, even the low- 
est castes, who roll it out with a rapidity and volume, and a 
violence of gesticulation and utterance quite astonishing to a 
civilized ear. 

Among the most pleasant recollections of my three weeks' 
sojourn in Constantinople, is a ride from Therapia, on the 
Bosphorus, to the waterworks of Belgrade', in company with 
Mr. Marsh, our Minister. During my stay in Therapia, I 
had the pleasure also of forming the acquaintance and enjoy- 
ing the kind hospitality of Mr. Brown, Secretary of the Amer- 
ican legation. To both of these gentlemen I am indebted 



166 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



for many kind attentions ; and the remembrance of the de- 
lightful hours spent in their society and that of their accom- 
plished families, forms the most agreeable episode in my pil- 
grimage through the East. 

Before my departure from Constantinople I was enabled, 
by joining a large party of tourists, who obtained a firman 
from the Sultan, to visit the Seraglio and all the mosques of 
Stamboul, including the far-famed Mosque of Santa Sophia. 
Lamartine calls this " a grand Caravanseri of God !" I looked 
in vain for something about it in the shape of camels or mules ; 
but saw nothing of the kind to justify such a figure of speech. 
Probably when the great poet was there, he saw imaginary 
camels and mules ; certainly there must have been an ani- 
mal with very long ears about the premises. 

Doctor Mendoza and the Madam having ascertained from 
the Portuguese Minister, that there was a good hotel in 
Jerusalem, and that it was quite practicable to make the 
tour of the Holy Land without starvation, made up their 
minds to encounter the risk. They departed in the first 
French steamer, intending to stop a few days in Smyrna. 
The doctor said it was not " imposs" that we should meet 
again in Beirut. 

I was so fortunate during my stay at the Byzant, as to 
form the acquaintance of a most intelligent and agreeable 
young gentleman from North Carolina, who was traveling 
for pleasure and information. He readily joined me in my 
contemplated tour through Syria. On the 15th of Novem- 
ber, having, through the kindness of Mr. Brown, Secretary 
of Legation, obtained a firman, signed by Abd-ul-Mejid, re- 
commending us to all Pashas, Reis, and Sheiks throughout 
his dominions, as " prince-born gentlemen," we looked our 
last look at the glorious City of the Sultan, and departed for 
Beirut. 



CHAPTER XIX, 



THE ENGLISH TOURIST. 



On our passage through the Sea of Marmora we were beset 
by a furious Levanter. The waters were lashed into a white 
foam, and floods of spray covered the decks fore and aft. The 
motion of the steamer in the short chopping seas produced 
the most unpleasant effects. Crowded as we were with deck- 
passengers, chiefly pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem, it was 
pitiable to behold their terror and the miserable condition to 
which they were reduced by sea-sickness and exposure to the 
weather. Some lay covered up in their dripping blankets, 
groaning piteously ; others staggered about the decks, cling- 
ing to the rails, and looking vacantly toward the land ; some 
prayed, some wept, some smoked, some did nothing at all, 
but it was evident there were not many aboard who would 
have objected to being put ashore again. In the midst of all 
the confusion, I noticed an English tourist on the quarter- 
deck, leaning against the companion-way, and contemplating 
the scene with a calmness that was really provoking. Hang 
it, man ! I thought, have you no soul — no bowels of compas- 
sion ? Why don't you look amused, or sorry, or interested, 
or sick, or miserable, or something ? I went a little closer, 
to try if I could discover some trace of feeling in his stolid 
features. Surely I had seen that face before ; that clean- 
shaved face ; those well- trimmed, reddish whiskers ; that 
starched shirt-collar of snowy whiteness ; that portly figure. 
Certainly I had seen him. Every body has seen him. 
Bromley is his name — Mr. Bromley, an English gentleman 
of fortune, who travels to kill time. He is the Mephistoph- 
iles of Englishmen. I saw him every where — in Paris read 



168 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



ing the newspapers in a cafe, on the top of the Righi criti- 
cising the rising of the sun, in Vienna wandering through the 
Paradei's Garten, in Berlin gazing calmly at the statue of 
Frederick the Great, on the Acropolis of Athens examining 
the Parthenon, in Constantinople lounging about the Bazaars, 
in Smyrna eating beefsteak at the Hotel of the Two Augustas 
— always reserved, serious, dogmatical, and English. When 
there were only Americans in the party he was a vast im- 
provement upon Bromley. As a matter of principle and 
'habit, he never makes acquaintances that may be troublesome 
hereafter. He is the embodiment of the non-committal. He 
never takes any thing on hearsay ; he looks at nothing that 
is not designated in the guide-book ; patronizes no hotel that 
is not favorably mentioned by Murray ; admires no picture 
except by number and corresponding reference to the name 
of the artist ; is only moved to enthusiasm when the thing is 
pronounced a chef d'azuvre by the standard authorities. He 



THE ENGLISH TOURIST 169 

shuts himself up in his shell of ice wherever he goes, and 
only suffers himself to be thawed out when he thinks, upon 
mature consideration, that there is no danger of coming in 
contact with somebody that may take advantage of the ac- 
quaintance. To his fellow-countrymen he is stiff and haughty , 
they may claim to know him on his return to England ; to 
Americans he is generally polite and affable, and returns any 
advance with great courtesy ; but seldom makes an advance 
himself. Bromley is a perfect gentleman in the negative 
sense. He does nothing that is ungentlemanly. He is too 
non-committal for that. Possibly he has a heart, and a soul, 
and just as much of the little weaknesses that spring from the 
heart and soul as any man — if you can only find it out. Touch 
his national pride, and you touch his weakest point. He is 
British from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet — 
looks British, feels British, talks British, carries with him the 
very atmosphere of Great Britain. In the course of five min- 
utes' conversation he refers to our free institutions, and asks 
how can they be free when we tolerate slavery. One would 
think the question had never been discussed before. He starts 
it as a telling point, and refers to the glorious freedom of 
glorious old England ! Can we, Brother Jonathan, stand 
that ? Of course not ; we are excited ; we refer him for an 
answer to the coal-mines of Cornwall — to the report on that 
subject made by a Committee of Parliament. Ha ! that 
makes him wince ! — that hits him where he has no friends ! 
He staggers — pauses — fires up again, and gives us a severe 
thrust back on repudiation ! repudiation in Pennsylvania and 
Mississippi ! disgraceful' act! a stain upon the nation ! That 
touches us ; we writhe ; we wince ; we groan inwardly ; we 
would give a quarter of a dollar at that very moment out of 
our own pocket toward paying the debts of the delinquent 
States ; but we rally again ; we put it to Bromley on the 
unholy wars with India ; the tithe system in Ireland ; the 
public debt of England, a most unrighteous institution for the 
purpose of sustaining a titled aristocracy — volley after volley 
we pour into him ; till quite breathless we pause for a reply; 
Bromley is puzzled ; the argument has assumed a variety 

H 



170 



A CEUSADE IN THE EAST. 



of forms ; it has become a seven headed diagon ; he doesn't 
know which head to attack ; he retorts on the use of bowie- 
knives in America — the lawless state of things, where a man 
cuts another down for looking at him. True ; we admit 
that ; it's a habit we have — a short way of doing justice ; 
but that's not the point — the point is this ; has England ever 
produced any thing like the gold mines of California? Brom* 
ley smiles contemptuously, points his finger toward Australia, 
and says : " You only beat us in a yacht race — that's all." 
" Yes, sir, we beat you, sir, in steamers ; in all sorts of sail- 
ing vessels ; in machinery ; in enterprise ; in — by Jupiter, sir, 
what haven't we beaten you in? eh, sir, what?" The En- 
glishman asks : " Where's your Shakspeare, your Milton, your 
Byron, your — dooce take it, where' s your literature ?" And 
so the battle rages, till both parties having exhausted all 
their ammunition, Bromley admits that America is a rising 
country ; a great country ; a country destined to be the most 
powerful in the world. Brother Jonathan is moved, and in 
the fullness of his heart protests that Great Britain is the only 
free government in the world besides the Republic of the 
United States. Bromley yields us the palm in the construc- 
tion of steamers and sailing vessels ; Jonathan cheerfully ad- 
mits that England is ahead in literature ; Bromley confesses 
that he always likes to meet Americans ; Jonathan swears 
that he is devoted to Englishmen ; finally both parties con- 
clude that it is useless for people of the same race to quarrel ; 
that all the difference between the two countries is merely 
the difference of latitude and longitude. So we journey on, 
as far as our roads he together, very amicably, and find that 
with a little mutual concession to each other's vanity we can 
be very good friends. True, Bromley reminds us, now and 
then, that we chew tobacco ; which we repel by an allusion 
to wine-bibbling ; this reminds Bromley that we have a nasal 
accent, and use slang terms ; that we say " I guess," when 
we mean Ci I fancy" or " I imagine ;" but we make ourselves 
even with him on that score by telling him that John Bull 
Bpeaks the worst English we ever heard ; that he does it from 
pure affectation, which makes the case unpardonable ; that 



THE ' ENGLISH TOURIST. 



171 



for our life we can't understand an Englishman two steps off, 
his language is so minced and disguised by ridiculous effem- 
inacy of pronunciation, by hemming and hawing, and all 
sorts of mannerisms — so shorn of its wholesome strength by 
the utter absence of simplicity and directness ; to which he 
responds by asking us where we got our English from ; which 
we answer by saying we got it from the people who first set- 
tled in America, but improved upon it a good deal after the 
Declaration of Independence. In this way we never want 
for subjects of conversation, and we find upon the whole that 
the English tourist is a very good sort of fellow at heart, with 
just about the same amount of folly that is incident to human 
nature generally, and not more than we might find in ourselves 
by looking inward. Bromley is but a single specimen — a 
man of many fine qualities, pleasant and companionable, 
when one becomes accustomed to his affectation. I have . 
met others of a different stamp — but here we are in the Dar- 
danelles ; the chain runs out ; the gale whistles madly against 



172 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



the rigging and iron rods ; the thing is fixed ; we must step 
for twelve hours. 

A sorry twelve hours it was for second-class passengers. 
Time, however, stops for no class ; it passed eventually ; and 
we once more went foaming along on our way. At Mitylene 
we touched to land some passengers, and next morning we 
were in sight of Smyrna. From day to day, after our de- 
parture from Smyrna, we enjoyed a continual feast of scenery 
along the shores of Asia Minor ; sweeping past islands, and 
towns, and towering mountains, in an atmosphere of Oriental 
richness, and out again upon a slumbering sea. 

At Rhodes we spent a day not soon to be forgotten in our 
pilgrimage. ^The picturesque beauty of the island ; the de- 
serted and time-worn aspect of the town ; the old houses 
ornamented with the armorial bearings of the Knights of 
Jerusalem ; the strange, piratical appearance of the Greek 
population, afforded us ample material for enjoyment and 
observation during our brief stay. 

On the following day we cast anchor opposite the town of 
Larneca in the Island of Cyprus. What time we had here 




VIEW IN LARNECA. 



THE ENGLISH TOURIST. 



173 



was very pleasantly disposed of in rambling about the ruined 
o]d town, making sketches, wondering how such a beggarly 
and degenerate population could exist on the face of the earth., 
and musing upon the many changes in the condition of the 
Island since the birth-day of the Cyprian goddess who came 
out of the surf at Papbos. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE SYRIAN DRAGOMAN. 

Any body stationed on the roof of Demetrie's hotel, near 
Beirut, might have seen, with a good spy-glass, early in the 
morning on the 23d of November, a steamer bearing the Aus- 
trian flag, paddling its way into the harbor. The decks of 
that steamer were crowded with pilgrims of all nations — 
Turks, Arabs, Russian and Polish Jews, and Greeks ; but 
conspicuous on the quarter-deck were two Americans, who 
might also have been seen with the spy-glass above men- 
tioned — one a tall slender gentleman, with a red book in his 
hand ; and the other rather shorter, but not too short, habited 
in the unpretending garb of a backwoodsman. Any body 
might know in a moment that the first was a Southerner, and 
the last no other than your friend of the present writing. 

The weather for nearly two months previously, during 
our wanderings in the Levant, had been unusually fine ; and 
for the past month, in Constantinople and Smyrna, we had 
enjoyed cloudless skies and a climate of delightful temper- 
ature. Ah ! if I could only give you a description of all the 
fine views of bare mountains, palm trees, and mosques that 
we saw along the shores of Asia Minor, or the glorious sunsets 
among the Greek Islands ! Such scenes, however, are for 
artists and poets, not for practical men like us, who go about 
the world to study the realities of life, and dissipate the mists 
of fancy. 

Scarcely had we cast anchor in the harbor of Beirut (which, 
by the way, like all the harbors on the coast of Syria, is a 
very bad one), when we were boarded by a whole legion of 
hotel-keepers and guides. Books of recommendation were 
thrust at us by lusty fellows in petticoats, who talked English, 



THE SYRIAN DRAGOMAN. 



175 



French, Italian, and Arabic all in one breath ; cards with 
views of splendid hotels that never have existed in Beirut and 
probably never will ; private hints whispered in our ears by- 
disinterested persons, and all sorts of strange things yelled at 
us by the boatmen, who crowded round the steamer. In five 
minutes I verily believe there was more talking done on that 
occasion, without a single movement being made toward dis- 
embarking the passengers, than one would hear during the 
whole process of clearing a California steamer. It is one of 
the peculiarities of Oriental travel that the moment a steamer 
drops her anchor the officers labor under the idea that the con- 
tract of transportation has been fulfilled ; that there is nothing 
more to be done but obstruct as far as practicable all attempts 
at getting ashore. Even where there is no quarantine to per- 
form, and no police or passport nuisance, they are so -loth to 
part company with their passengers, that I have seen them 
turn in and go to sleep for the purpose of passing the time 
agreeably, leaving a man stationed at the gangway, who 
always says, " Excuse, senor, you can't go ashore yet." Can 
a person of nervous temperament, who has suffered all the 
horrors of confinement for two or three days, and who feels 
certain that the authorities on shore, who are expected every 
moment, will never come, in consequence of smoking the 
chibouck till they fall asleep, and sleeping till they are ready 
to smoke the chibouck again — can one, I say, be tried at the 
bar of public opinion and justly censured, under such circum- 
stances, for saying dammit ? 

The season was late for a tour through Syria and Palestine. 
Already the rain was a month behind the time ; it might 
come to-morrow or it might not ; but that it w r ould come be- 
fore very long was regarded as a certainty. Travelers return- 
ing from the Kile usually cross the little desert to Gaza early 
in March, so as to take Palestine in the spring, or somewhat 
sooner, by Mount Sinai and Arabia Petrsea. The season is 
then delightful ; the country covered with verdure ; and of 
course Palestine is seen in its most favorable aspect, before the 
earth has become parched by the scorching heat of summer. 
With us it was not a matter of choice. We had spent the 



176 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



time in rambling about the Levant, and had just a month 01 
six weeks to spare, and it was Palestine now or never. 

Demetrie, a fine looking Greek, who carried every thing 
before him by his splendid Albanian costume, pushed the 
babbling crowd aside, and took possession of us without oppo- 
sition. His mustache was the blackest and thickest and most 
conspicuous I ever saw : it had killed half the Arab girls in 
Beirut, and well entitled the bearer to his distinguished repu- 
tation as Demetrie, the conqueror of the female sex. But 
Demetrie is also distinguished as a dragoman. He has been 
the guide of English lords and Russian counts without num- 
ber ; has made fortunes and spent them with a facility 
unknown to the cool-headed inhabitants of more temperate 
?limes. He has gone through all the varieties of life ; and : 
now proprietor of the principal hotel beyond the walls of 
Beirut ; and I can conscientiously say to all travelers that he 
is a prince of a fellow, and that his hotel is the cleanest and 
most commodious in Syria. 

Long before our arrival at the hotel we were beset by 
guides, all eagerly thrusting at us their certificates of charac- 
ter. Brief as our experience had been in Oriental life, we 
were discreet enough not to compromise ourselves by accept- 
ing the services of any of these ragamuffins, who, to say the 
least of them, were a very shabby-looking set. Besides, we 
were cautioned against them by a very distinguished person- 
age who accompanied Demetrie to the steamer, and who 
seemed to be the bosom friend and confidant of Demetrie. 
That personage inspired me with profound sentiments of 
admiration for his character and genius from the moment 1 
first saw him. There was a cool air of self-reliance about 
him ; an off-hand, dashing style of address in the man ; a 
contempt for all rivalry and opposition ; an unmistakable 
superiority over all the other Arabs, that took both myself and 
friend captive at once. We belonged to him ; we were his 
subjects from the very beginning. Demetrie held us by force 
of a fine mustache ; but the great unknown held us by force 
of character. \Ye* were at once under mesmeric influence ; he 
could have taken us to the public bazaars and sold us without 



THE SYRIAN DRAGOMAN. 



177 



the least opposition on our part, at almost any sacrifice, such 
was the mysterious nature of his power. What he was, or 
where he lived, or what he intended doing with us, it was 
impossible to say ; all he did, so far, was to push aside the 
babbling crowd of guides, and utter contemptuous exclama- 
tions when they provoked him, such as, " Dirty blackguards ! 
Toor devils ! Never mind them, gentlemen ; they don't know 
any better ! Miserable dogs ! Come on, gentlemen ; come 
on ; this is the way !" 

On our arrival at Demetrie's, our friend and protector took 
us to the best room in the establishment, where he arranged 
us comfortably ; told us we might rely upon Demetrie for 
good feeding ; and then, drawing forth from his sash a small 
black book, addressed us substantially as follows : 

" Gentlemen, I am Yusef Simon Badra, the dragoman for 
Syria. This is my book of recommendations. I have taken 
a thousand American gentlemen through Syria. Yes, sir; thv. 
Americans like me ; I like the Americans ! I hate English- 
men ; I won't take an Englishman ; they don't suit me; 
can't get along together ; I know too much for 'em. But the 
Americans suit me ; always ready ; up to every thing — fun, 
fight, or frolic. There are other dragomans here, gentlemen. 
Emanuel Balthos is my friend ; I won't interfere, if you wish 
to take him. I don't say he's afraid of robbers ; I don't say 
he hires guards in all the bad places on that account. I speak 
only of myself. The robbers know me. The name of Yusef 
Badra is guard enough in any part of Syria. Courage is a 
great thing in this country ; courage will carry a man through 
where a thousand guards daren't show their faces. The last 
time I was out I killed six Bedouins. I sometimes kill such 
fellows for fun. They know me ; they know it's a habit I have, 
and they always keep clear when they can. But you can 
choose for yourselves, gentlemen ; there's my book ; look over 
it. Of course you'll smoke some chiboucks. Ho ! there — 
Hassin — chiboucks !" 

The chiboucks were brought; and while we smoked, and 
looked over Yusef 's book of recommendations, that renowned 
personage took our spare clothes, created a tremendous sensa< 



178 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



lion down below by the manner in which he caused all the 
domestics to brush them, and made every Arab about the 
premises tremble by the ferocity of his looks. 

Such an idea as that of entertaining any proposition from 
another dragoman never entered our heads. We felt that we 
belonged to Yusef from the beginning ; that he had a right to 

C CO? c 

us, which we could not resist ; that he was just the man to 
take us through a dangerous country. Every recommenda- 
tion in the book complimented him upon his indomitable per-, 
severance and courage. It was enough ; the thing was fixed. 

Yusef was already our drago- 



man. Here you have his por- 
trait : 

Face open and intelligent, 
eyes round and full of fire, 
mustache fierce, temperament 
nervous-sanguine, age twenty- 
eight, costume rich, careless, 
and dashing ; figure well-knit 
and of medium height ; man- 
ner frank, self-relying, and 
p| chivalrous ; whole tone of 
character imposing, captivat- 
ing, and Oriental. 

Now I profess to be a judge 
of mankind. I claim some merit in knowing Yusef at a 
glance. I felt that we were perfectly safe in his hands ; that 
he would fight for us ; nay, wallow in blood for us, if neces- 
sary ; that it would do us credit to travel with a dragoman 
so renowned and feared throughout Syria : that his lively 
energy would carry us through all difficulties; that there was 
nothing narrow or contracted in such a man, and he would 
feed us well, and provide us with good horses. 

The duties of the Syrian dragoman are rather onerous, and 
require, perhaps, some explanation. He is interpreter of the 
party ; he usually provides the provisions, horses, mules, 
tents, kc, and charges so much a day for the whole ; he 
speaks various languages, seldom less than five or six ; is 




THE SYRIAN DRAGOMAN. 



179 



expected to know all about the country, and something more. 
He is responsible for the name of every village and town on 
the route ; he is responsible for every assertion made by 
Robinson and other authorities, and if there be any incon- 
gruity in the name or location, it is the dragoman who is 
compelled to answer for it ; he is responsible for every moral 
and physical defect in the horses and mules ; for every shower 
of rain that interrupts the journey; for every headache and 
fit of indigestion suffered by any member of the party ; for the 
amount of fleas that infest every stopping-place ; for the 
sterile and unsatisfactory character of the scenery in certain 
stages of the journey ; for the roughness of the roads; for the 
uncivilized appearance of the Arabs throughout Syria ; for 
the bad state of repair in which the bridges are kept ; for 
every extreme of heat and cold; and all the discomforts of 
the climate and country ; in short the dragoman is responsi- 
ble for every thing. He must be a man of courage, of energy, 
of patience, of good temper, of intelligence, of learning, of 
every thing under the sun, moon, and stars. He must know 
ail that the Howadji doesn't know, and all that the Howadji 
ought to know ; his brains must act for himself and the 
Howadji, and for the muleteers, and for the horses, mules 
donkeys, and every living thing in the company ; if they don't 
they are very poor brains indeed. He must be dragoman, 
tutor, lexicon, valet, cook, caterer, comforter, warrior — all in 
one ; always ready for duty, night and day, never tired, never 
at fault in any emergency. In effect, the dragoman has a 
pretty busy life of it, and Yusuf is a good specimen of the best 
class. If he didn't know and do all these things, he was 
never at a loss to know and do something else equally satis- 
factory ; and in the end we were forced to admit that his 
resources were unlimited. When he forgot the name of a 
village or important ruin, he invented a name that fully an- 
swered our purpose ; when it rained he proved to us that 
rain was necessary in order to clear the atmosphere and 
make it healthy : when there were no robbers, he showed us 
what he would do if there were robbers ; when we were dis- 
satisfied in any way, he was more dissatisfied with the cause 



180 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



of our dissatisfaction than we were ourselves, which made us 
perfectly satisfied ; he was, in all respects, a sagacious, ready- 
witted and obliging dragoman, highly qualified by nature for 
his arduous and responsible profession. 

If he had any fault at all, it was an incorrigible hatred of 
the female sex. He never could refer to the subject, without 
strong expressions of contempt and disdain. He considered 
that all the misfortunes of life could be traced to woman ; 
4iat the whole female sex consisted of devils in the disguise 
of angels. As this singular prejudice concerned himself and 
not us, we paid but little attention to it in the beginning of 
our journey ; though as we advanced we noticed some slight 
discrepancy between his practice and his preaching that struck 
us as somewhat remarkable. He had nieces at every stop- 
ping-place, and he never passed without calling to see them. 
Perhaps the relationship overcame his scruples — or it might 
be the pride of popularity. 

In making a bargain with a dragoman it is considered 
safest to have a written contract, signed before the consul, 
specifying every thing to be furnished by the dragoman, the 
number of horses, mules, &c, and the compensation. The 
usual price, including tents, provisions, horses, and every 
thing necessary, is one pound sterling a day for each person; 
but, as the season was late, we agreed with Yusuf for ninety- 
six piastres, or about four dollars each. Having now made 
the tour and acquired some experience in bargain-making, I 
am very sure I could travel through Syria and Palestine for 
about half that ; not of course in the luxurious style of fashion- 
able tourists, who go merely for pleasure, but in quite good 
enough style for any person who wishes to acquire knowledge 
of the country on the most economical terms. 

I was rejoiced, soon after we were installed at Demetrie's, 
to hear the well-known voice of Doctor Mendoza. He was 
making arrangements with Emanuel Balthos to take himself 
and the Madam through Syria. He said it would be necess 
to have a fine tent, to have chairs, tables, bedsteads and other 
conveniences, as the Madam was indispose ; that without 
these it would be imposs to voyage. 



THE SYRIAN DRAGOMAN. 



18J 



My excellent friends were delighted to see me. and it was 
a mutual gratification to find that we would in all probability 
often meet during our tour ; in fact that we would perform 
the greater part of it in company. They had stopped several 
days in Smyrna, and were much pleased with the Hotel des 
deux Alt gust es ; the Doctor had ascertained that there was 
an excellent hotel in Damask, and had caused Demetrie to 
write on to the proprietor and engage rooms, without which 
he said, it would be imposs to hazard the voyage. To-morrow 
morning they intended, if poss, to depart. 

The same afternoon, it was an interesting and instructive 
spectacle to see the Doctor and the Madam in the front yard 
of Demetrie' s hotel. Their tent was erected for inspection ; it 
was of the most fanciful shape and coloring ; there was a 
private chamber in it ; and there was no end to the knick- 
knacks for comfort and convenience. The horses were brought 
up ; the Doctor examined the saddles and the saddle-girths , 
mounted and got down again, and re-mounted and got down 
again a dozen times, before he was satisfied that the capari- 
sons were safe. The Madam screamed, and endeavored to 
faint, when she saw the beautiful little mare upon which she 
was to ride cut , a pigeon- wing by order of Emanuel Balthos ; 
and it was only by great persuasion that she would consent tc 
remain tranquil, in accordance with the advice of the Doctor, 
who said that the Madam was a little indispose ; that he 
(the Madam) would be better after he had voyaged a few 
days on horseback. 

On the following day we bade this excellent couple adieu 
and saw them proceed on their winding way toward Baalbek 
Here I may as well mention that we met them frequentl) 
during our tour, and sometimes traveled for days together ; 
the greatest cordiality and friendship always existed on both 
sides ; and it was only owing to the difference in our mode 
of traveling that we did r ot permanently join the two parties 



CHAPTER XXL 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE SALADIN, 

If there was any one thing in which I was resolved to be 
particular it was in the matter of horses. Our journey was 
to be a long one, and experience had taught me that much 
of the pleasure of traveling on horseback depends upon the 
qualities of the horse. For some reason unknown to me, and 
which I have never been able to discover even to this day, a 
sort of fatality has always attended my dealings in horseflesh. 
I had bought, hired, and borrowed the very finest-looking ani- 
mals that could be found any where, and never failed to find 
out before long that they were blind, spavined, foundered, or 
troubled With some defect which invariably caused them to 
stumble and throw me over their heads. Not content with 
the entertaining spectacle thus afforded to public eyes, the 
very friends of my heart turned against me in the hour of 
misfortune, and said it was all my own fault ; that any body 
of common sense could have foreseen the result ; that the most 
honest men in the world, whose word would pass in bank for 
any amount, could not help lying when it came to horses ; 
that a man's own father was not to be trusted in a transac- 
tion of this kind, or even a man's own mother, without look- 
ing into the horse's mouth and examining his hoofs. On this 
account I was resolved to study well the points of the animal 
that was to bear me through Syria. 

Yusef had already given me some slight idea of the kind 
of horse I was to have. It was an animal of the purest 
Arabian blood, descended in a direct line from the famous 
steed of the desert Ashrik ; its great-grand-dam was the beau- 
tiful Boo-boo-la, for whose death the renowned Arab chieftain 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE SALADIX. 185 



Ballala, then a boy, grieved constantly until lie was eighty- 
nine years of age, when, no longer able to endure life under 
so melancholy an affliction, he got married to a woman of 
bad temper, and was tormented to death in his hundred and 
twentieth year, and the last words he uttered were, dogh- 
era ! doghera ! straight ahead ! All of Yusef Badra's horses 
were his own, bought with his own money, not broken down 
hacks like what other dragomans hired for their Howadji ; 
though, praised be Allah, he (Yusef) was above professional 
jealousy. There was only one horse in Syria that could at 
all compare with this animal, and that was his own, Syed 
Sulemin ; a horse that must be known even in America, for 
Syed had leaped a wall twenty feet high, and was trained to 
walk a hundred and fifty miles a day, and kill the most des- 
perate robbers by catching them up in his teeth and tossing 
them over his head. I had not heard of this horse, but 
thought it best, by a slight nod, to let Y r usef suppose that his 
story was not altogether unfamiliar to me. Being determined 
to examine in detail all the points of the animal destined for 
myself, I directed Yusef to bring them both up saddled and 
bridled, so that we might ride out and try their respective 
qualities before starting on our journey. This proposition 
seemed to confuse him a little, but he brightened up in a mo- 
ment and went off, promising to have them at the door in 
half an hour. 

' Two hours elapsed ; during which time I waited with great 
impatience to see the famous descendant of the beautiful 
Boo-boo-la. I looked up toward the road, and at length saw 
a dust, and then saw a perfect rabble of Arabs, and then 
Yusef, mounted on a tall, slabsided, crooked old horse, and 
then — could it be? — yes ! — a living animal, lean and hol- 
low, very old, saddled with an ancient saddle, bridled with 
the remnants of an ancient bridle, and led by a dozen ragged 
Arabs. At a distance it looked a little like a horse ; when 
it came closer it looked more like the ghost of a mule ; and 
closer still, it bore some resemblance to the skeleton of a small 
camel; and when I descended to the yard, it looked a little 
like a horse again. 



184 



A CHUSADE IN THE EAST. 



" Tell me," said I, the indignant blood mounting to my 
cheeks, " tell me, Yusef, is that a horse?" 

" A horse !" retorted he, smiling, as I took it, at the untu- 
tored simplicity of an American ; " a horse, General ! it is 
nothing else but a horse ; and such an animal, too, as, I'll 
venture to say, the richest pasha in Beirut can't match this 
very moment." 

" Tahib!" Good — said one of the Arabs, patting him on 
the neck, and looking sideways at me in a confidential way. 

" Tahib /" said another, and "tahib!" another, and 
" tahib" every Arab in the crowd, as if each one of them 
had ridden the horse five hundred miles, and knew all his 
merits by personal experience. 

That there were points of some kind about him was not to 
be disputed. His back must have been broken at different 
periods of his life, in at least three places ; for there were 
three distinct pyramids on it, like miniature pyramids of 
Gizeh ; one just in front of the saddle, where his shoulder- 
blade ran up to a cone ; another just back of the saddle ; and 
the third, a kind of spur of the range, over his hips, where 
there was a sudden breaking off from the original line of the 
backbone, and a precipitous descent to his tail. The joints 
of his hips and the joints of his legs were also prominent, espe- 
cially those of his forelegs, which he seemed to be always 
trying to straighten out, but never could, in consequence of 
the sinews being too short by several inches. His skin hung 
upon this remarkable piece of frame-work as if it had been 
purposely put there to dry in the sun, so as to be ready for 
leather at any moment after the extinction of the vital func- 
tions within. But, to judge from the eye (there was only 
one), there seemed to be no prospect of a suspension of vital- 
ity, for it burned with great brilliancy, showing that a horse, 
like a singed cat, may be a good deal better than he looks. 

" A great horse that," said Yusef, patting him on the neck 
kindly ; " no humbug about him, General. Fifty miles a day 
he'll travel fast asleep. He's a genuine Syrian." 

" And do you tell me," said I sternly, " that this is the great- 
grandson of the beautiful Boo-boo-la ? That I, a General in 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE SALAD IN. 



185 




SALADIN. 



the Bob-tail Militia and representative in foreign parts of the 
glorious City of Magnificent Distances, am to make a public 
exhibition of myself throughout Syria mounted, upon that 
miserable beast ?" 

'* Nay, as for that," replied the fellow, rather crestfallen, 
" far be it from me, the faithfullest of dragomans, to palm off 
a bad horse on a Howadji of rank. The very best in Beirut 
are at my command. Only say the word, and you shall 
have black, white, or gray, heavy or light, tall or short ; but 
this much I know, you'll not find such an animal as that 
any where in Syria. Ho, Saladin ! (slapping him on the 
neck,) who's this, old boy ? Yusef, eh ? Ha, ha ! see how 
he knows me ! Who killed the six Bedouins single-handed, 
when we were out last, eh, Saladin ? Ha, ha ! you know it 
was Yusef, you cunning rascal, only you don't like to tell. A 
remarkable animal, you perceive ; but, as I said before, per- 
haps your Excellency had better try another. 



186 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST, 



" No," said I, " no, Yusef; this horse will do very well 
He's a little ugly, to be sure ; a little broken-backed, and 
perhaps a little blind, lame, and spavined, but he lias some 
extraordinary points of character. At all events, it will do 
no harm to try him. Come, away we go !" Saying which 
I undertook to vault into the saddle, but the girth being 
loose, it turned over and let me down on the other side. 
This little mishap was soon remedied, and we went off in a 
smart walk up the lane leading from Demetrie's toward the 
sand-hills. In a short time we were well out of the labyrinth 
of hedges formed by the prickly-pears, and were going along 
very quietly and pleasantly, when all of a sudden, without 
the slightest warning, Yusef. who had a heavy stick in his 
hand, held it up in the air like a lance, and darted off furi- 
ously, shouting as he went, •'Badra, Badra !" Had an entire 
nest of hornets simultaneously lit upon my horse Saladin. and 
stung him to the quick, he could not have shown more decided 
symptoms of sudden and violent insanity. His tail stood 
straight up, each particular hair of his mane started into life, 
his very ears seemed to be torturing themselves out of his head, 
while he snorted and pawed the earth as if perfectly convulsed 
with fury. The next instant he made a bound, which brought 
my weight upon the bridle ; and this brought Saladin upon 
his hind legs, and upon his hind legs he began to dance about 
in a circle ; and then plunged forward again in the most ex- 
traordinary manner. The whole proceeding was so very un- 
expected that I would willingly have been sitting a short 
distance off, a mere spectator ; it would have been so funny 
to see somebody else mounted upon Saladin. Both my feet 
came out of the stirrups in spite of every effort to keep 
them there ; and the bit, being contrived in some ingenious 
manner, tortured the horse's mouth to such a degree every 
time I pulled the bridle, that he became perfectly frantic, and 
I had to let go at last and seize hold of his mane with both 
hands. This seemed to afford him immediate relief, for he 
bounded off at an amazing rate. My hat flew off at the 
same time, and the wind fairly whistled through my hair. 
I was so busy trying to hold on that I had no time to think 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE SALADIN. 



187 



how very singular the whole thing was ; if there was any 
thought at all it was only as to the probable issue of the ad- 
venture. Away we dashed, through chapperals of prickly 
pear, over ditches and dikes, out upon the rolling sand plain ! 
I looked, and beheld a cloud of dust approaching. The next 
moment a voice shouted " Badra, Badra !" the battle-cry of 
our dragoman, and then Yusef himself, whirling his stick over 
his head, passed like a shot. " Badra, Badra !" sounded again 
in the distance. Saladin wheeled and darted madly after 
him ; while I, clutching the saddle with one hand, just saved 
my balance in time, " Badra, Badra !" shrieked Yusef, whirl- 
ing again, and blinded by the fury of battle. " Come on, 
come on ! A thousand of you at a time ! Die, villains, 
die !" Again he dashed furiously by, covered in a cloud of 
dust, and again he returned to the charge ; and again, 
driven to the last extremity by the terrific manner in which 
Saladin wheeled around and followed every charge, I seized 
hold of the bridle and tried all my might to stop him, but 
this time he not only danced about on his hind legs, but 
made broadside charges to the left for a hundred yards on a 
stretch, and then turned to the right and made broadside 
charges again for another hundred yards, and then reared up 
and attempted to turn a back somerset. All this time there 
was not the slightest doubt in my mind that sooner or later 
I should be thrown violently on the ground and have my 
neck and several of my limbs broken. In vain I called to 
Yusef; in vain I threatened to discharge him on the spot; 
sometimes he was half a mile off, and sometimes he passed 
in a cloud of dust like a whirlwind , but I might just as 
well have shouted to the great King of Day to stand still as 
to Badra, the Destroyer of Robbers. By this time, finding it 
impossible to hold Saladin by the bridle, I seized him by the 
tail with one hand, and by the mane with the other, and 
away he darted faster than ever. " Badra, Badra !" screamed 
a voice behind ; it was Yusef in full chase ! Away we flew, 
up hill and down hill, over banks of sand, down into fearful 
hollows, and up again on the other side ; and still the battle- 
cry of Yusef resounded behind, " Badra, Badra forever !" 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE S ALA DIN. 



189 



On we dashed till the pine grove loomed up ahead ; on, and 
still on, till we were close up and the grove stood like a wall 
of trees before us. " Thank Heaven/' said I, ' i we'll stop now ! 
Hold, Yusef, hold !" " Badra, Badra !" cried the frantic horse- 
man, dashing by and plunging in among the trees : " Badra, 
forever !" Saladin plunged after him, flying around the trees 
and through the narrow passes in. such a manner that, if I feared 
before that my neck would be broken, I felt an absolute certain- 
ty now that my brains would be knocked out and both my eyes 
run through by some projecting limb. In the horror of the 
thought, I yelled to Yusef for God's sake to stop, that it was 
perfect folly to be running about in this way like a pair of mad- 
men ; but by this time he had scoured out on the plain again, 
and was now engaged in going through the exercise of the 
Djereed with a party of country Arabs, scattering their horses 
hither and thither, and flourishing his stick at their heads 
every time he came within reach. They seemed to regard 
it as an -excellent joke, and took it in very good part ; but 
for me there was no joke about the business, and I resolved 
as soon as a chance occurred to discharge Yusef on the spot. 
Saladin, becoming now a little tamed by his frolic, slackened 
his pace, so that I got my feet back into the stirrups, and 
obtained some control over him There was a Syrian cafe 
and smoke-house not far off, and thither I directed my 
course. A dozen boys ran out from the grove, and seized 
him by the bridle, and at the same time Yusef coming up, 
both horses were resigned to their charge, and we dismount- 
ed. " Hallo, sir !" said I "come this way!" for to tell the 
truth I was exceedingly enraged and meant to discharge him 
on the spot. 

"Bless me! what's become of your hat?" cried Yusef 
greatly surprised ; "I thought your excellency had put it in 
your pocket, to keep it from blowing away !" 

" The devil you did ! Send after it, if you please ; it must 
be a mile back on that sand hill." 

A boy was immediately dispatched in search of the hat. 
Meantime, while I was preparing words sufficiently strong to 
express my displeasure, Yusef declared that he had never 



190 



A CRUSADE IN TEE EAST. 



seen an American ride better than I did. only the horse was 
not used to being managed in the American fashion. 

Eh ! Perhaps you allude to the way I let go the reins, 
and seized him by the mane V' 

11 To that most certainly I do refer/ 5 replied Yusef; "he 
doesn't understand it ; none of the horses in Syria understand 
it." 

" Tso. !; said I. "very few horses do. None but the best 
riders in America dare to undertake such a thing as that. 
Did you see how I let my feet come out of the stirrups, and 
rode without depending at all upon the saddle V 

li Most truly I did : and exceedingly marvelous it was to 
me that you were not thrown. Any but a very practiced 
rider would have been flung upon the ground in an instant. 
But wherefore. General, do you ride in that dangerous 
way V 

i; Because it lifts the horse from the ground and makes him 
go faster. Besides., when you don't pull the bridle, of course 
you don't hurt his mouth or stop his headway." 

Yusef assented to this, with many exclamations of surprise 
at the various customs that prevail in different parts of the 
world ; maintaining, however, that the Syrian horses not be- 
ing used to it. perhaps it would be better for me in view of 
our journey to learn the Syrian way of guiding and controlling 
horses ; which I agreed to do forthwith. TTe then sat down 
and had some coffee and chiboucks ; and while I smoked Yu- 
sef enlightened me on all the points of Syrian horsemanship . 
how I was to raise my arms when I wanted the horse to go 
on. and hold them up when I wanted him to run. and let 
them down when I wanted him to stop ; how I was to lean a 
little to the right or the left., and by the slightest motion of the 
bridle guide him either way ; how I was to lean back or for- 
ward in certain cases, and never to trot at all. as that was a 
most unnatural and barbarous gait, unbecoming both to horse 
and rider. Upon these and a great many other points he 
descanted learnedly, till the boy arrived with my hat ; when, 
paying all actual expenses for coffee and chiboucks. we dis- 
tributed a small amount of backshish among the boys who 



THE HISTORY OF MY HORSE SAL AD IX. 



191 



had attended our horses, and mounted once more. This 
time under the instruction of Yusef, I soon learned how to 
manage Saladin, and the ride back to Beirut was both pleas- 
ant and entertaining. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE ARAB STORY-TELLER. 

This is, among his countrymen, a most important character. 
Every body who has traveled through Egypt or Syria, will bear 
witness that the accompanying pencil-sketch is a faithful repre^ 

sentation of the class. The old gen- 
tleman whose name is attached to 
it lives in the neighborhood of Bei- 
rut. He is called Ben-Hozain, the 
King of Talkers. The handwrit- 
ing is his own ; and you will admit 
that the name looks as much like 
Ben-Hozain as it does like Benja- 
min Huggins, of which I think it 
must be a corruption. Ben is con- 
spicuous chiefly for the length of 
his mustache. His tongue is long, 
but his mustache is a good deal 
longer ; in fact, it is such a mus- 
tache as any Arab in Syria, how- 
ever distinguished, might be proud 
to swear by. It is to be regretted 
that people should swear at all ; but if they will swear, it 
is better they should be profane on the subject of beards or 
mustaches, than on matters of higher import. By profession 
and inclination Ben-Hozain is a story-teller. I do not mean 
to say that he is given to willful lying, or to any malicious 
misrepresentation of facts ; but the business of his life is to 
entertain the public of Beirut with traditional romances of 
the country- Where people read but little, they make up 




THE ARAB STORY-TELLER,. 



195 



in some measure for the deficiency by talking and listening a 
good deal. This is especially the case with the Orientals. 
In the absence of a general circulation of newspapers, of print- 
ed histories of wars, philosophical essays on man, and books 
of travel, they must have professional story-tellers, or romanc- 
ers ; that is to say, men whose regular business it is to deal 
in tradition or fiction. Throughout the whole East there is 
not a more important personage than the story-teller, or one 
who wields a greater influence upon the public mind. He is 
a walking newspaper, a living history, a breathing essay, a 
personified book of travels, which evolves its stores of knowl- 
edge on self-acting principles. As such, being considered a 
responsible agent, he is entitled to the confidence of the com- 
munity, and generally enjoys it to the fullest extent. The 
more marvelous his stories are, the greater credit they obtain ; 
the more rabid his political satires, the greater his circulation ; 
the more incomprehensible his theories and illustrations of 
human life, the profound er his philosophy. He is always a 
popular character, and is indispensable at every smoking-house. 
The grandest Pashas listen to him with profound attention ; 
the morals which he points and the tales which he adorns 
find their way even into the sacred precincts of the Harem. 
In the highest circles and in the lowest his traditions and 
anecdotes are swallowed with avidity. Men who have lis- 
tened for years to the same stories and the same jokes, con- 
tinue to listen for years again with undiminished delight, and 
always applaud at the same points and laugh at the same 
strokes of wit. No child of ten years, in our cold clime of 
common sense, could devour his first fairy-tale or ghost-story 
with half the delight that an Arab grandfather devours the oft- 
told romances of the old story-teller. 

The way I happened to take Ben-Hozain's portrait was 
this : One afternoon I rode out with our dragoman to the pine 
grove, where the towns-people go to smoke the narguilla and 
display their feats of horsemanship, and where I had already 
displayed some feats of horsemanship myself. It was shady 
and pleasant under the trees, and I dismounted and amused 
myself taking a view of a Syrian coffee-house, near which 

I 



194 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



were seated a number of Turks, Greeks, and Arabs, in all 
their picturesque varieties of costume. An old man sat in 
the midst of the group, chanting at the highest pitch of his 
voice the famous romance of the White Princess and the 
Grand Yizier. Sometimes in the excitement of the love parts 
he screamed, and sometimes pretended to faint ; and when he 
was depicting the more tragic parts, where there was murder 
and suicide, he howled like a hyena, and counterfeited all the 
agonies of death in a most thrilling manner. When he got 
over the principal difficulties, he moderated down into a spe- 
cies of billing and cooing, winking and ogling, that reminded 
me forcibly of representations that I had seen of the passions 
in the Astor Place Opera House. I could not but think that 
nature had intended Ben-Hozain to grace the boards of that 
establishment, and delight an appreciating audience of the 
Upper Ten, his delineation of the passions was so exquisitely 
extravagant. Struck with the picturesque raggedness of his 
costume, and the length of his grizzled mustache, I began to 
sketch him. Gradually the listeners dropped off one by one, 
and gathered around me to look into the mysteries of the art. 
All kinds of queer remarks were made, of which Yusef gave 
me a running interpretation. " That's Ben-Hozain," said 
one; "don't you see how the Howadji puts down his nose?" 
" And his eyes !" adds another. "And his mustache !" cries 
a third. " Tahib !" Good. "Adjaib!" Wonderful. "What 
a sublime genius the Howadji has !" " Tell Ben-Hozain," 
said I, "to come a little closer, and you shall see him on this 
paper just as he lives and breathes !" " Adjaib !" Wonder- 
ful. " This way, Hozain ; the Howadji wants you!" But Ho- 
zain had no notion of being interrupted in his story. He went 
on even louder than before on the subject of the White Prin- 
cess. " By Allah !" cried the Arabs, " he shall come ! Hozain 
must be done on paper !" With which two stout fellows ran 
over to where he sat, seized him on each side by the mus- 
tache, and hauled him up before me. He was the most com- 
ical and good-humored old gentleman imaginable ; his face 
was covered with wrinkles and the stubbles of a white beard, 
and he seemed quite lelighted at affording merriment to the 



THE ARAB STORY-TELLER, 



195 



crowd. Here you have him just as he sat, with his mustache 
in full ; his eyes twinkling with fun, and a tradition in every 
wrinkle of his mouth. So pleased was he with his appear- 
ance on paper that he put his name to the sketch. The Arabs 
were all in ecstasies, and begged me to take them one and 
all ; but, there being about thirty of them, I had to decline, 
on the plea of having important business to attend to that 
evening. 

As I was going away, the old story-teller looked wistfully 
at me. "Well," said I, "what do you want now, my friend?" 
"Backshish" said he. 

"For what ? I'm going to put you in a book. Isn't that 
backshish enough ?" 

" But I'll never see the book. I'd rather have the back- 
shish now." 

" That's strange, Hozain. Have you no pride in the honox 
of the thing ? Think of the fame it will give you ! Ben- 
Hozain will be known in the remotest corners of America." 

" Ah, Grand Seignor, Saltan of the United States, Ben- 
Hozain is already the victim of fame. For more than forty 
years have I told stories for the public good ; Sultans have 
praised me, Pashas have applauded my romances, beautiful 
ladies have wept over my love passages, yet here I am, as 
you see, with scarce a rag on my back. When I'm dead, I 
don't know that they'll take the trouble to bury me." 

"Well, Hozain, I'm sorry to hear so bad an account of your 
people. In America we take a great deal of trouble about 
our benefactors after they die. We often spend more money in 
feasting over their graves and celebrating their virtues than 
would have made them comfortable during life. Your patrons 
must be very ungrateful, and as a mark of my contempt for 
such ingratitude, I shall give you the backshish you require. 
How much will it take to make you happy ?" 

" Only two piasters, sublime Howadji ! On that amount 
of money, Ben-Hozain can be the happiest man upon earth, 
for he can drink the Coffee of Delight and smoke the Pipe of 
Content for a week !" 

" Very well, take this piece of silver, five piasters (twenty 



196 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



two cents). And remember (said I, proudly,) that in America 
we never neglect men who live by their talents. We sub- 
scribe to their newspapers, read their books, profit by theii 
labors, and when they are dead pay them — a great deal of 
respect." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 

It was our good fortune to become acquainted during our 
brief sojourn in Beirut, with a young English gentleman, chief 
officer of an Oriental Steamer, who having a couple of months 
to spare, agreed to join us in our tour through Syria. His good- 
humor and intelligence rendered him an invaluable acquisition 
to our party. 

Leaving Beirut in the latter part of November, we passed, 
not far beyond the suburbs, the spot pointed out as the scene 
of the remarkable battle between St. George and the dragon, 
and soon after crossed the pass of Xerxes. The road lay along 
the sea beach, which extends to the rocky point, five or six 
miles from the town, called the Roman Pass. On the rocks 
to the right of the road are some Latin inscriptions carved in 
tablets, and in some places the remains of basso-relievos. 
Farther on a few miles we descended into the beautiful little 
valley of El Kelb, or Dog River, where stand the remains of a 
bridge built by the Romans. Silk is manufactured to some 
extent in this country, and our road frequently lay through 
flourishing plantations of mulberry. The ground is cultivated 
in a rude manner most of the way along the shores of Syria, 
and we passed through many small fields of sugar-cane, irri- 
gated by water from the mountain streams, which is conducted 
in narrow walled ditches through the fields. Covered as the 
whole face of the country is with stones, yet the tilled parts 
are apparently fertile and yield abundant crops. On the 
slopes of Mount Lebanon are many small villages, similar to 
those met with throughout Syria. The houses are but one 
story high, built of stone, with flat mud roofs, and at a dis» 



198 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



tance have the appearance of mud boxes put out on the hills 
to dry. The village of Zuk, which we passed at a distance, 
is prettily situated, but is like all other Syrian villages, a 
wretched abode of men, women, and vermin. We met on the 
road several of those strange beings the Druses, a religious 
sect wearing a costume peculiar to themselves. The head- 
dress of the women points upward like an immense horn, 
about two feet long ; the men wore an indescribable dress of 
ragged robes, picturesque at first sight, but not to be too 
closely scrutinized. The Druses inhabit the country chiefly 
around Mount Lebanon and the neighborhood, and sprung orig- 
inally from the Kamiathians, one of the Mohammedan sects 
We met also during the afternoon several Pashas and theii 
retinues of servants, coming from Damascus and Tripoli, and 
occasionally traveling merchants with their caravans of mer- 
chandise, bound to Beirut from Aleppo and other interior 
towns. About four miles beyond the valley of El Kelb, we 
came to another beautiful little valley, sheltered by high 
mountains, running down to the sea-shore, where there is a 
small harbor, which our guide informed us was occupied by 
the BritisTi forces after the storming of Beirut in 1841. 
Here is situated the village of Juna ; and the mountain sides 
are dotted with small houses and terraced with stone walls tc 
a considerable height, the most unpromising patches of tillable 
ground being thus made available. Yusef soon had our tent 
up in the midst of a young orchard of mulberry trees ; and it 
was not long before we had on our table a good supper of 
chicken, rice, preserves, and coffee ; for, in justice to our drag- 
oman, I must not omit to mention that he fed us in excellent 
style, and gave us so many luxuries in the way of tables, 
bedsteads, chairs, napkins, and different courses of plate, that 
the poor mules were quite laden down, and we were obliged 
to protest against this effeminate style of living, especially as 
we soon found it to be at the expense of time, an important 
object with us at this season. Contrasted with the sort of 
traveling to which I had been accustomed in California, it 
was ridiculously civilized, and made me feel much less hide- 
pendent than when I coursed through the plains of the Ojitas 



THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 



and San Jose with nothing but my mule and saddle-bags, and 
slept under the trees. Coffee and chiboucks finished the 
evening. The clouds had been threatening for some time, 
and, before we were comfortably in bed, they began to pour 
down upon us such a torrent of rain that we soon found the 
tent but a poor protection, and the wind blew in gusts so sud- 
den and violent that we momentarily expected to be covered 
up in a ruin of canvas. At last we had to make a retreat 
to a khan down on the beach, where w T e were fortunate enough 
to get a tolerable room. The khans, or houses for the accom- 
modation of travelers throughout Syria, are usually large stone 
buildings, without furniture, and filthy to an extreme. Of 
course Frank travelers only resort to them when the weathei 
does not permit of living in tents ; and many prefer suffering 
from cold and rain to encountering the vermin with w T hich 
the khans are infested. It is always best, however, when the 
season is at all unfavorable, to sleep in houses ; for whatever 
may be the inconveniences of living among mules, asses, fleas, 
and smoking Arabs, they are not so great as those of sickness 
in a foreign land, where no assistance can be had. Many a 
traveler has laid his bones in Syria in consequence of wet 
nights and sunshiny days. We here took the precaution, as 
in all future cases, to have the first layer of fleas swept out, 
leaving the partially dormant layer below ; and thus we com- 
menced our first night of Syrian travel. For hours I lay 
musing over the many scenes I had passed through during 
the last few years, but the fitful moaning of the wind, mingled 
with the measured break of the surf upon the beach, at length 
lulled me to sleep, and I slept well by their familiar music. 
It rained hard most of the night. Toward morning the wind 
had moderated, yet several small vessels in the port hove up 
their anchors and stood out to sea as if they expected worse 
weather. This was not a cheering prospect for our contem- 
plated tour. We had, in starting from the khan, the first 
trial of patience to which, in common with all who travel in 
the East, we were doomed to be frequently subjected — I mean 
the loss of time. The Arabs, Turks, and indeed all the 
Oriental races, are singularly independent of time ; in fact, 



200 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



with the exception of its use in estimating distances, they 
appear to have no knowledge of its value whatever. We 
were to have started at six, but it was nine before we got 
rightly under way. 

Our Arab muleteers were slow, and although Yusef swore 
himself completely out of breath, and to the best of my knowl- 
edge entirely exhausted the vocabulary of strong expressions 
in Arabic, they made no effort to hurry the matter in the 
least. On the contrary, I was rather struck with the resigned 
manner in which they bore his violent reproaches and fero- 
cious denunciations, and the cool air with which they puffed 
their chiboucks after the slightest exertion. On the beach, as 
we passed along through the village of Juna, we observed 
the wreck of a vessel — one of the many driven ashore on this 
coast every winter. In Beirut we were told that not less than 
eight or ten were lost in this way every winter ; the coast of 
Syria from Tripoli to Damietta affording no secure harbor for 
shipping. The road beyond Juna to the next point or pass we 
found rocky and precipitous, much like what we had passed, 
only still more tiresome. It should be borne in mind that 
roads in Syria are not like the roads we are accustomed to 
at home, which, bad as they are compared with the roads 
through Italy, have yet some pretensions to the name ; but 
here to dignify them by such a name is a complete perversion 
of the word. The bridle paths of Switzerland are magnificent 
highways compared with them, and in thus speaking of them 
I merely adopt the ordinary language of travelers. I have 
seen nothing like them except in crossing the Isthmus of Pa- 
nama ; imagine that Isthmus extended an indefinite number 
of miles, and you have some idea of Syrian roads. Fortu 
nately, the horses of this country are remarkable for their 
sureness of foot and powers of endurance. 

JNTot far beyond Juna is the bed of a river called El Mah- 
milton, over which is the arch of an old Roman bridge, con- 
spicuous for its massive proportions and fine architectural 
style. Nothing remained of the river but its bed. most of the 
streams throughout the country having been dried by the long 
and uninterrupted drought for the last eight months. In tha 



THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 



201 



winter, this stream is no doubt swollen to something like a 
river by the mountain torrents, although in speaking of rivers 
here, as indeed throughout Europe and the East, it is not to 
be supposed that what we call rivers in America are meant 
Every little creek in the Old "World is dignified by the name 
of river, and every duck-pond is called a lake. 

It would be necessary to go beyond the limits of a mere 
journal of incidents to give an account of the country for the 
next three days. "We stopped at Djbel, Batroum, and Tripoli, 
long enough to see each town pretty thoroughly, and make 
some sketches, and on the third day commenced our ascent 
of Mount Lebanon 




CASTLE OF DJBEL 

At Aheden, claimed by some authorities as the Garden of 
Eden, we were obliged to take a guide, the path being alto- 
gether obliterated in some of the table-grounds by recent floods 
of rain. As we approached the cedars we went down into 
a ravine, and soon after passed. along the ledge of a profound 
gorge, extending to the depth of several hundred feet. A vil- 



•202 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



lage, distant by Syrian measurement two hours from Aheden. 
lies on the left of the gorge, not far from which is a celebrated 
grotto, visited by many of the pilgrims as a place of peculiar 
interest. Our time, however, being limited, we pushed on, 
and in another hour entered the celebrated grove of cedars — 
a mere patch of green in the bare and desert hollow of the 
mountains. It was cold and gloomy within the shadowy in- 
closure, and quite deserted. Not a living thing was to be 
seen, and all was silent as death, save an occasional plaintive 
note from some lonesome bird among the branches. Entering 
by a ravine below, we ascended some distance among the 
younger growth of trees till we reached an elevation a few 
hundred yards higher up, upon which stands a rude stone 
chapel, built by some of the Frank monks, in the midst of the 
ancient grove, and still used by Christian pilgrims in their an- 
nual visits of devotion. There are twelve veteran and storm- 
beaten trees pointed out as the original cedars of Lebanon ; 
and the best authorities, I believe, concur in admitting these 
to be the veritable cedars referred to in the Scriptures. Cer- 
tainly they bear every indication of extraordinary antiquity ; 
and there is no reason to doubt that they existed in very re- 
mote ages. From these have sprung, during the lapse of cen- 
turies, the surrounding grove, consisting of nearly four hundred 
trees of various degrees of antiquity, but all of the same spe- 
cies. The chapel was quite deserted, the priests having left 
some days before for the more genial climate of Tripoli. It is 
the custom for all the inhabitants of the vicinity to depart for 
the vallevs below on the approach of winter, which is very 
severe and protracted at this elevation. Our guide pointed 
out the height to which the snow reached during the previous 
winter on some of the trees, and we judged it to be not less 
than twenty feet. It often covers the walls of the chapel en- 
tirely up to the roof, completely blocking up all means of in- 
gress and exit. At such a time, of course, it would be very 
difficult, if not altogether impracticable, to exist in this region: 
but, if we are to credit the strange histories related to us by 
cur Arabs, it has been done by the aid of miracles, and may 
be done again. Eleas, one of our interpreters, assured us that 



THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 



20c 



there was once a dark man who came over from a distant 
country, and who, in consequence of having committed a great 
sin, was resolved to expiate his offense by starving himself to 
death in the hollow of one of the old cedars. There he fixed 
his abode, and prayed in secret, and such was the efficacy 
of his prayers, that he subsisted for two years on nourishing 
waters that were sent dowm to him from the branches of the 
tree by miraculous power ; and he suffered neither from heat 
nor from cold, but at the expiration of his voluntary penance 
took his departure, and returned a happy man to his own 
country. To render the story strictly credible, the hollow was 
pointed out to us. and Eleas. who was a Christian of the Greek 
Church, said his prayers under the shadow of the old cedar. 
With other strange narratives of a similar kind the simple 
natives entertained us, while we sat down under the wide- 
branching trees, spread our cloth upon the ground, and re- 
freshed ourselves after the ride from Aheden. 

As soon as we had finished our repast, we set out to make 
a more thorough examination of the ancient cedars, or the 
original twelve, in which the chief interest is centred. It 
required no great research to convince us of their great age. 
which is strikingly apparent in their gnarled and time-worn 
trunks. Many of the branches have become sapless, and are 
fast rotting away ; others are broken off by the force of many 
tempests, or have fallen of their own accord from sheer old 
age ; new ones have sprung out, and young shoots continue 
to supply the ravages worked by time ; the trunks are of vast 
circumference, and are composed of divers parts consolidated, 
some of them perhaps the growth of different ages. All the 
old trees and many of the younger ones have large pieces cut 
out of their trunks, upon which are carved the names of visitors 
who from time to time have been attracted to this remote 
region. Among these I noticed the name of Lamartine, said 
to have been carved by an Arab while the great sentimental- 
ist was going into ecstasies in his comfortable quarters below. 
There were several American names, but none of very recent 
date — only two within two years. In the register which is 
kept on the altar of the chapel I saw several English, French, 



204 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



and Oriental names Some of the remarks were curious 
enough. One gentleman, who probably imagined the cedars 
to be yellow or pink, with crimson tops, like those in the pan- 
oramas, says he visited the Cedars of Lebanon, and was 
greatly disappointed. Another traveler states that he could 
see much larger und finer trees at home without trouble or 
expense. "What any body expects to see except the Cedars 
of Lebanon, l am at a loss to conceive. One does not travel 
three days over bad roads to witness a raree-show, or see sim 
ply a few cedar- trees because -they are cedars ; but, if I under- 
stand it, the object is to see the Cedars of Lebanon mentioned 
in the Scriptures ; and there they are without doubt. They 
can be seen by any body who has eyes to see. It is true 
they are only cedars, but they are very wonderful, as well 
from their great antiquity as from the Scriptural interest 
attached to them. 

Messrs. Lansing and Burnett, American missionaries at 
Damascus, visited this region last summer, and carefully 
counted the cedars, both old and young. They also made 
some measurements of a very interesting character. The 
entire grove, according to their estimate, consists of four hun 
dred trees ; the average circumference of the original twelve 
is about twenty-five feet, and one was found to measure up- 
ward of thirty. The trunks of the more ancient cedars do 
not rise to any great height before they branch out into enor- 
mous limbs, commencing ten or fifteen feet from the ground, 
some perhaps twenty feet. The branches are very crooked 
and tortuous, partly decayed, as before stated, and gnarled 
with the frosts and tempests of ages. It is said that no othei 
specimens of the kind are found in any part of the world, ex- 
cept such as have been transplanted from this grove ; but 
Messrs. Lansing and Burnett ascertained to their entire satis- 
faction that other cedars of the same species do exist in the 
mountains of Syria. The wood is white, and has a pleasant 
perfume ; and to this odor reference is made in the Scriptures. 
It is not stronger, however, than the scent of the ordinary red 
cedar, perhaps ]ess apparent. 

From the front of the chapel there is a very fine view of 



THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 



200 



the valley below, extending entirely to the sea. The reefs 
opposite Ras Tripoli are distinctly visible on a clear day. 
Computed by the time required for the ascent, the distance 
must be about thirty miles from the town of Tripoli. From 
Beirut it requires three days, at the usual rate of travel, to 
reach the cedars, but it is not difficult to accomplish the task 
in less. To Baalbek, across the valley of Bukaa, on the other 
side of Mount Lebanon, is another good day's ride. 



CHAPTER XXIV, 



BAALBEK. 

Before Ave left that celebrated grove, we provided om- 
selves with a good supply of relics. At first we were loth 
to touch a single twig of those sacred old trees, which had 
braved the tempests for centuries ; but our guides told us 
that thousands of native pilgrims come from all parts of the 
country every year, and carry away whole loads of seeds and 
branches, without the least compunctions of conscience ; in 
fact, that the pruning did them good. With such a prece- 
dent, made more certain by the aid of a little backshish, we 
followed the example of other pilgrims, and got the Arabs to 
cut us some walking-sticks and knock down some burrs, both 
of which I hope to see flourishing in Washington one of these 
days. 

From the Cedars up to the summit of Mount Lebanon, by 
the way of the pass that leads into the valley of Bukaa, is 
nearly two hours of very laborious climbing. It was not long 
before sunset when we reached the highest part of the ridge. 
Our horses were pretty well tired down, and ourselves rather 
the worse of the wear, having walked most of the way from 
Aheden. The altitude of this part of the mountain we sup- 
posed to be about six thousand feet. As yet there was no 
snow visible on any part of it. The air was sharp and clear, 
but not unpleasantly cold. Tired as we were, after our hard 
day's journey, we could not but stop a while to enjoy the 
view. It was really one of those splendid sights which even 
a traveler, whose life is spent among the beauties of nature, 
is privileged to enjoy but once or twice in the course of ex- 
istence. On the one hand the valley of Aheden, through 



BAALBEK 



207 



which we had been ascending for nearly two days, stretched 
down till it appeared to mingle with the mists of the ocean 
at the shores of Tripoli ; on the other the magnificent plain 
of Bukaa, bounded in the distance by the mountains of Anti- 
Lebanon, at the base of which, sparkling in the rays of the 
setting sun, were distinctly visible the minaret of the mosque 
and the ruins of Baalbek ; while far down in the valley of 
Bukaa, to the right as we faced the plain, gleamed the bright 
waters of the Litany, and across the deep gorges at our feet 
were cast the shadows of the lofty peaks of Lebanon — a vast 
and impressive scene, within a single sweep of the eye, sterile, 
waste, and desolate, but sublime in its weird simplicity. It 
brought to mind, with the vividness of reality, those grand 
pictures of primeval scenery drawn in the sacred writings ; 
and the lapse of ages seemed now but the lapse of years, 
passed in a dream. It was like returning after an absence to 
some long known haunt of youth ; for the words of the sacred 
book, the first impressed upon the memory, were here a sub- 
lime reality. 

As w T e descended toward the plain of Bukaa, driving our 
horses before us, my self-willed old charger, Saladin, took a 
notion not to be driven down, so he walked up on all possible 
occasions. In vain I hurled missiles at his head ; in vain I 
begged him not to be foolish ; in vain I tried to make him 
understand that he was only doubling the distance, as he 
would eventually be compelled to turn back again ; it was 
all to no purpose. Up again to the top of Mount Lebanon 
he would go, after the most persevering resistance, half way 
down ; and at last he ran away full speed over rocks that 
seemed quite inaccessible. I had long suspected Saladin of 
a sentimental turn of mind, and was now convinced that he 
only wanted to enjoy another view of the sunset ; but it was 
too late, the sun had disappeared and it was fast getting dark. 
So I darted after him, and the chase became quite exciting. 
Never skipped a goat with more agility than that slab-sided 
old horse. It was fully half an hour before I could catch 
him, and it was then so dark that I found myself lost. 
Neither muleteers nor guides were to be seen. I shouted till 



208 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



I could shout no longer, but there was no answer. At last, 
after tumbling, sliding, and jumping down precipices, till it 
seemed as if I had reached the sloping-ofT place of the world, 
I heard the voices of my friends below. It was evident we 
must spend the night here, for Baalbek was still six hours 
distant. The guides and muleteers were nowhere to be seen, 
and we consoled ourselves with the notion that they had run 
off with our baggage. After wandering about in the dark 
for some time we came to the ruins of a village, without si 
living soul about it. In the hollow a little below the ruins 
we encamped for the night, our missing Arabs having at 
length made their appearance. There is a cave here, said 
to have been not more than a few years since the abode of a 
large band of those mountain robbers who infest the country. 
Of late, however, they have not found their business profit- 
able, and they only commit occasional depredations. Our 
dragoman said he could put to flight any gang of robbers in 
Syria single-handed, such was the terror in which he was 
held. He certainly carried pistols and knives enough about 
his person to kill a good many ; but it was not at all dan- 
gerous to be shot at by Yusef, for I saw him shoot a good 
many times and never knew him to hit any thing. The cave 
was a very nice place for robbers, pleasantly situated, with 
large trees in front, and a fine spring of water within a hun- 
dred yards. At present it is a place of resort for goats and 
benighted travelers. We lit a fire near the entrance, erected 
our tent under some fine old chestnut trees, and slept soundly 
all night in spite of the cold, which was very keen. Xext 
morning there was snow visible on the tops of the mountains. 

Yusef having threatened to whip all the Arabs again (for 
he had already whipped them two or three times), got them 
to work at an early hour, and, by the force of much talk and 
desperate flourishing of the stick, they were all ready with 
their mules as soon as we had finished breakfast. Pushing 
on rapidly for Baalbek, we were soon made sensible of the 
deceptive nature of distances from a very high point of view 
On the preceding evening, from the summit of Mount Leb- 
anon, the plain of Bukaa. reaching to the ruins of Baalbek, 



BAALBEK. 



209 



appeared to commence at the place of our encampment, and 
to continue with an almost unbroken surface to the base of 
the Anti-Lebanon range ; but now it seemed as if we were 
scarcely more than half way down. The road from the ruined 
village is through a very rocky and broken region, studded 
over with patches of scrub-oak bushes, and altogether uncul- 
tivated. The only signs of habitation we saw were a few 
miserable huts rudely built of loose stones, the back part be- 
ing against a hill or mound of earth, and the front barely 
high enough to admit of a doorway. These wretched hovels 
are inhabited by a swarthy and half-savage race of Arabs, 
who live on the flesh and milk of goats, many flocks of which 
we saw browsing among the rocks. In fact, goats, sheep, 
dogs, men, women, and children seem to live together upon 
terms of perfect equality. They were the most uncivilized 
people we had yet seen, and we had seen a good many on the 
road from Tripoli. 

It was evident that but few travelers in our style of cos- 
tume had been in the habit of passing, from the apparent as- 
tonishment which our appearance created. Some women at 
one of the huts laughed so immoderately that we were in- 
duced to ask them, through our dragoman, what was the oc- 
casion of their mirth. Why, said they, we never saw people 
before with saucepans on their heads for turbans. Do the 
Christians all wear saucepans ? The shape of our trowsers 
also afforded much merriment. " Don't you burst when you 
sit down?" they asked, and tins sally of wit was so irresist- 
ible that we could hear their shouts of laughter long after we 
had passed. Following for several hours down the course of a 
small stream, we at length reach in good earnest the plain of 
Bukaa. This magnificent valley stretches on the left, as we 
faced Baalbek, as far as we could see : on the right it seem- 
ed to merge into a sea of bright water studded with islands, 
the reflection of which appeared in its surface as distinctly as 
if it was in reality a sea or lake, reminding me forcibly of 
the Salinas plains in California. In fact there was much in 
the general character of this part of Syria to bring up remin- 
iscences of California. The two great ranges of mountains* 



210 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST, 



Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, skirting the- plain; the vast ex- 
tent of the view on all sides ; the genial sky and bracing at- 
mosphere : the long lines of mules, with their packs, winding 
over the distant hill-sides ; the trails diverging in all direc- 
tions ; the parched and stern character of the scenery, were not 
unlike an autumn view in the Valley of San Jose or San Juan, 
and still more like the Valley of Salinas. But here the re- 
semblance ceases. There is nothing in Syria to remind one of 
the indomitable energy, the life, vigor, and spirit of progress 
so strikingly apparent in California. Whatever the plain of 
Bukaa may have been in the days of the splendor of Helio- 
polis, it is now a barren waste, dotted over with ruined villages, 
and of a most melancholy aspect. Portions of it are still cul- 
tivated in a rude manner ; and we were told it was susceptible 
of being made to produce good wheat. It is almost entirely 
destitute of wood and water, and the villages stand out na- 
kedly in the full blaze of an eastern sun. Far in the distance 
we saw a single column, a tall solitary object on the broad 
waste, standing like some lonely sentinel to remind the trav- 
eler that this land was not ahvays thus desolate. There is 
a tradition among the Arabs that this column was carried 
thither after the destruction of Baalbek, on the shoulders of a 
woman, who placed it where it 
now stands to commemorate 
the death of her lover, who 

was slain on the spot. Her ^: _ 
back must have been strong, _ . 

as well as her love, for on a 
nearer inspection we found the 
column to be nearly if not quite 
as high as Pompey's Pillar. 
Though of ancient material, so 
far as we could judge, the 
blocks of stone had, evidently 
been put together in their pres- 
ent position at a more recent 
date. It stands on an immense 
pedestal, loosely built, and many of the stones appear to have 




BAALBEK 



211 



been thrown out of place by some convulsion of nature. The 
lower block forming the base is broken nearly to the middle, 
the gap having the appearance of being purposely made to de- 
stroy the column by a fall. It is miraculous how it has so 
long resisted the force of the winds, which sometimes blow 
with great violence on this plain. 

In about an hour more we reached a miserable village, in 
sight of the ruins of Baalbek, where we stopped to lunch. 
This was the worst specimen of a Syrian village we had yet 
seen. There was a pond of green water close by from which 
the stench was insufferable ; and as to the huts, they were 
literally goat-houses, filthy and poverty-stricken to a degree 
that can not be conceived ; many of them being mere holes 
cut in the mud-banks partially walled up. The inhabitants 
corresponded well with the village, being a ragged, unwash- 
ed, squalid set of vagabonds, as lazy as Arabs can be, but, 
like all the Orientals, of handsome features and picturesque 
and dignified in their rags. Every man, with his turban and 
chibouck and fine beard, was a living picture. Of the women 
I can not say so much. They were coarse and ugly enough, 
and so covered up in dirty rags that the effect was more in 
distance than proximity. The Sheik was a dignified old man, 
who sat in front of his hovel smoking with the quiet air of a 
Pasha or Sultan. And here, let me observe, that I have sel- 
dom seen an Arab or Turk of any rank above the mere dregs 
of society who was not a model of good manners ; never 
evincing any thing like awkwardness in the presence of his 
superiors, or self-sufficiency over his inferiors. The Sheiks 
of the villages dress quite as plainly as the best of the ordi- 
nary classes and can only be distinguished by the deference 
shown them by the people generally. In their administra- 
tion of justice they seem to be actuated by a desire to econ- 
omize their power by settling all difficulties amicably, and on 
the principles of common sense. Law is here divested of its 
tautology, for it is merely an accepted standard of right and 
wrong recognized by the mass of the community tradition- 
ally ; and the Sheik who acts with undue severity, or who 
is governed by inequitable or selfish motives, soon loses all 



212 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



power, and his mandates are disregarded. These village 
governments are in fact petty republics, though nominally 
founded and conducted on the principle of hereditary despot- 
isms. This has reference, however, only to their municipal 
economy ; they are all under the sway of the Pashas who 
govern the large cities in virtue of the powers given them 
from the Sublime Porte. Strictly as the women were watched, 
they could not restrain their curiosity, but crowded around us 
the moment we entered the village. Their sovereign lords 
now and then sharply reproved them, and added force to the 
reproof, when it was too often disregarded, by a sharp slap 
on the side of the head. As usual our dragoman went to 
the best looking hut, where he procured us a tolerably clean 
mat, and spread it near the door on a sort of mud seat. Here 
we were surrounded by all the idlers in the village. Our 
manner of eating excited the most undisguised astonishment, 
especially the use of knives and forks, which from the chat- 
ter of tongues we imagined to be the subject of much in- 
teresting speculation. Every mouthful was watched from 
its incipient carving to the cutting upon the plate, the trip on 
the fork to the mouth, its disappearance and mastication 
there, and final passage down the throat, and presumed 
lodgment in the stomach. The salting and peppering, the 
nice turning over with the fork, seemed to be regarded as a 
miracle of dexterity. Ill suppressed Mashallas w r ere heard 
whenever two pieces could be pinned together and made to 
disappear at the same time. Yusef was greatly mortified at 
this annoyance, and told us it was not the Arab fashion, but 
that these poor devils were no better than Kelb, or dogs, and 
had never seen Christians eat before. He took particular 
pains to assure us that respectable Arabs, whom he claimed 
as his countrymen, had as much delicacy about looking at 
people while eating as any Europeans. 

Before reaching the village, we had an indistinct view of 
the columns of the grand Temple of the Sun ; but it was not 
until we had approached to within a few miles that the whole 
magnificent pile of ruins and columns loomed up in distinct 
outline against the slopes of Anti-Lebanon. 



BAALBEK. 



213 



It was a soft pleasant evening as we entered the outer 
walls, and drew up our horses "before the castle. Like the 
Acropolis at Athens, all else seemed nothing compared with 
the glorious Temple of the Sun. How grandly it towers amid 
the desolation of ruins ! rising in all its majesty from the 
mighty monuments that lie mouldering around it, with its yet 
magnificent columns standing out in bold relief against the 
mountains ; its massive walls unshaken by the tempests of 
ages, its magic ornaments still the perfection of beauty. 
Looking upward through the mass of ruins, the rugged out- 
line of the mountains was bathed in the rays of the setting 
sun, and the whole heavens glowed with soft colors. Far 
across the broad wastes of the valley of Bukaa were minia- 
ture islands and solitary trees, reflected in its surface, and 
long trains of camels passing on their weary way, and the 
hoary peaks of Mount Lebanon towering high above all. 

While Yusef went into the village to search for quarters, 
we rode around the ruins, more and more confounded with the 
vast extent and elaborate architectural finish of this magnifi- 
cent pile. All the associations of the place contribute to 
inspire the mind with glowing conceptions of the ancient 
splendor of Baalbek ; when those walls of massive stone were 
perfect ; when those broken columns, prostrate now — save a 
few that stand to show how great the wreck has been — had 
each a place ; when those massive cornices, so exquisite in 
their finish, those friezes and capitals, wrought with such 
masterly skill, formed a perfect whole ; when the glorious 
Temple of the Sun stood untouched by the scathing hand of 
time or the ravages of war, and Baalbek was the glory and 
the pride of Assyria — such were the associations that filled the 
mind as we gazed upon this mighty wreck of matter. 

Of the origin of Baalbek I believe very little is known. It 
has been the current belief among the Arabs for many gen- 
erations that the Temple of the Sun and all the surrounding 
edifices were built by genii ; and in proof of this they point to 
the immense stones high up in the walls, and ask what human 
power could have placed them there ? The Jews say it was 
built by Solomon ; and it is thought by some that the castle 



214 



A CRUSADE IX THE EAST. 



was an impregnable fortress, which Solomon called the Tower 
of Lebanon. The Greeks believe it to be Nicomedia. where 
Santa Barbara suffered martyrdom. Pierre Belon, a French 
traveler, who visited Baalbek in 1548, considered it to be the 
ancient Cesarea Philippi. where St. Paul makes mention of 
having been. Some believe it to be the ancient Palmyra ; 
which, however, is now well known to be four days distant. 
The most reliable authorities agree in the opinion that Baal- 
bek is the ancient Heliopolis. 

I was not disappointed in the ruins of Baalbek,, and this is 
saying a good deal. There is very little to be seen in the old 
world that does not produce disappointment ; for I believe any 
traveler who is willing to confess the truth will admit that 
reading about places of this kind at home and seeing them 
with the naked eye are altogether different things. The rams 
of Baalbek are among the few sights one sees in the East that 
will bear the test of scrutiny ; the more they are studied the 
greater is the admiration they excite ; and if one can not go 
into the sentimentalities of Lamartine, he will see enough at 
least to afford both pleasure and wonder. 

Modern Baalbek is totally unworthy the name it bears. I 
had imagined it to be something like Beirut, or in any event 
not inferior to Tripoli ; but the fact is. it is a miserable vil- 
lage, not much better than the meanest collection of hovels 
we had seen on the road. A few scattered and ruinous stone 
huts, with flat mud roofs., the walls broken, and the stones 
mattered in piles through the narrow and filthy lanes, two or 
diree dilapidated mosques, and a Greek convent, constitute 
nearly all that exists of Baalbek, exclusive of the ancient 
temples. Travelers, in consequence of the difficulty of pro- 
curing accommodation in any of the Mohammedan houses, are 
generally compelled to camp outside, or seek for quarters in 
the Greek convent, which is about as tempting as a comfort- 
able pig-sty. The hill-sides are covered with the ruins of the 
ancient walls, and the whole town is so dilapidated that it is 
difficult to distinguish the houses from the general wreck. 
Manv portions of the ancient ruins 'are built in amou^ the 
hovels, forming a curious melange of the sublime and the rid i- 



BAALBEK. 



215 



culous. Iii the midst of mud-roofed huts may be seen stand- 
ing out in solitary relief the remains of a beautiful Corinthian 
column; and over some miserable doorway the choicest spe- 
cimen of a cornice, supported by blocks of rough stone. Some 
of the inhabitants, loth to destroy the work of the genii, have 
built their huts around the standing columns, scattered here 
and there, so that in projecting through the* roof they form a 
very pretty ornament. Old arches and gateways are so 
patched up and remodeled that little else save the material 
remains to show their origin. The principal mosque is evi- 
dently all, or nearly all, rebuilt from the ruins of some ancient 
edifice, portions of it being so put together as to destroy all the 
harmony of the different parts. I believe this is the work of 
the Turks ; it looks very much as if it was done by people who 
were ignorant of the difference between a column and a cornice. 

From an elevation a little beyond the chief ruins there is a 
fine view of the Castle of Baalbek and the Temple of the Sun. 
These are the principal objects of interest. I made a sketch 
of them, which is now before me ; but I can not undertake to 
describe them. It is a mighty mass of ruins of walls, of col- 
umns, and towers — a picture of desolation made more desolate 
by all that survives the ravages of time. The castle, or 
palace, is a long rambling edifice, composed of immense w T alls 
and mouldering towers ; parts of it have probably been rebuilt 
by the Saracens, and some recent patching in white seems to 
have been done by the Turks, who evidently have a great 
taste for putting columns where cornices belong, and patching 
up dark old walls composed of immense blocks with little 
pieces of white stone about a foot square. The enormous size 
of some of the blocks of stone in the main walls of the palace 
is one of the chief objects of interest. Three of these, in the 
wall at the rear of the grand temple, measure sixty feet ea3ii, 
and form together a surface of a hundred and eighty feet in 
length and fifty-four in width, all of solid stone. Considering 
the distance these have been carried from the quarry, and the 
height to which they have been elevated in the wall, it would 
seem that the people of those days must have had some very 
powerful mechanical means of overcoming the difficulty. 



216 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



We took an Arab boy of the village with us as a guide, and 
made a thorough exploration of the ruins. I have an imper 
feet recollection of long subterranean passages, arched over 
with tremendous stones, very dark, and full of niches and 
queer places at the sides, with broken busts of old kings, and 
ruined ornaments, and dim flashes of light through the open- 
ings, and a very «1g;ong smell of goats ; and this is all that I 
can tell you of the palace. It was, no doubt, a wonderful 
place once, and is yet ; but it is hard to get all the bearings 
of it in a day or two. There are hundreds of intricate pas- 
sages to explore above and below, grand old chambers to see. 
stairs of solid marble, inscriptions in Roman, marble tombs of 
old kings or emperors, grand old columns., cornices, and friezes ; 
and I don't know how many other things, to crowd the brain 
with and confuse thf* memory. 

The broken columns on the outside are scattered about in 
melancholy profusion. Some of the best have been taken 
away to ornament the mosque of Sultan Soliman in Constanti- 
aople ; but there is still enough to astonish the beholder. 
The Doric and the Corinthian orders of architecture are ap- 
parent throughout the ruins ; the pure and elegant taste of 
the Greeks prevailing in some parts, and the profuse magnifi- 
cence of the Romans in others ; but always with such an 
admirable disposition of the parts as to preserve the tone of 
harmony, and still afford a pleasing variety. 

The entrance into the Temple of the Sun is one of the 
grandest things imaginable. It is almost incredible the 
amount of labor bestowed upon this single part ; the curious 
carving, the basso-relievos, the intricacy and ingenuity of 
design, and the wonderful delicacy of finish. Over head is 
an immense block of stone displaced by some convulsion of 
nature, and it hangs by a few inches on each side, forming a 
remarkable feature in the ruin. The carving is minute and 
beautiful ; the eagle and the Cupids are universally admired 
Chief of all, however, is the frontispiece, consisting of an im- 
mense number of figures in basso-relievo, representing the mys- 
teries and sacrifices of Paganism. There is a mass of men 
and animals, in most Paganistic confusion, very well exe 



BAALBEK. 



217 



cuted and very strangely designed . "Within the walls of the 
sacred temple are niches where stood in former times statu- 
ary, and some beautiful specimens of friezes and other decora- 
tions. In order to get on top we were obliged to creep into 
a little hole near the grand entrance, and ascend by a circu- 
lar stairway. From the top of the Temple of the Sun we had 
an imposing view of the ruins that lie in confused masses 
around. It is in every respect a scene of utter and hopeless 
desolation. I could not but think with a melancholy interest 
of the difference between what I now saw, and what stood 
there in centuries past, when those ruined walls encircled the 
pride of Assyria ; when those parched and arid plains were 
covered with gardens, and irrigated by fountains and flowing 
streams ; and the heroes, whose deeds have given a romance to 
Oriental history, moved in triumph there, amid the swell of 
music and the homage of the multitude. Now what was 
it ? a desert wilderness — a city of crumbling walls, of bat- 
tered and time-worn castles, and broken columns — a ruin 
amid ruins. Camels were browsing lazily on the stunted 
bushes near the ruins, and groups of Arabs sat smoking on 
the broken columns ; goats ran bleating in and out of the 
palace-chambers, and the startled crows flew from their nests 
as we approached. It was ruin every where ; the spirit of 
desolation hung over all, and the proud City of the Sun laj 
dead in the 

"Wide waste of all-devouring years." 

K 



CHAPTER XXV. 



YUSEF DANCES THE RAAS. 

While we were looking at the ruins, Yusef came back from 
the village, which is a little way off on the slope of the hill, 
with news that he had found a lodging place for us at the 
house of his niece. By this time we began to have a sus- 
picion of Yusef 's nieces, he had so many all over Syria. At 
Batroun he had nieces, at Tripoli and Aheden he had nieces, 
and now here was another at Baalbek, and the strangest part 
of it was that they were all very pretty. However, as we had 
no prejudice against beauty, we followed our dragoman up 
into the village, where we found his niece and her husband 
living in a stone hut, rather a more decent sort of hovel than 
most of those in the neighborhood. It was, in truth, a very 
respectable little stone box covered over with mud, with a 
place for fire in one corner, and a great many little pockets in 
the walls all round, where there were stowed onions, tobacco, 
and sundry small notions for pleasure and sustenance. The 
host was an Arab of the country, a very good sort of fellow, 
who seemed to have but two objects in life to accomplish — 
one to see that his wife kept her face covered, and the other 
to keep the roof of his house- from leaking ; I hardly know 
which troubled him the most. The wife was a pretty buxom 
young woman, with fine black eyes and a beautiful mouth, 
which she took every opportunity to display, in spite of the 
vigilance of our host, who was constantly on the watch, when 
he was not on the top of the house. He kept a round stone 
— a piece of an old pillar found among the ruins — which he 
was almost continually rolling over the top of the house ; 
sometimes he would roll it for an hour, and then come down 



YUSEF DANCES THE RAAS. 



219 



and look after his wife and smoke his chibouck ; but the pre- 
sentiment was evidently uppermost in his mind that it would 
rain some time or other, and to work he would go again, 
hopping all over the roof with one foot while he kept the stone 
in motion with the other. The poor fellow was actually a 
victim of conjugal felicity. 

In traveling through Syria, as in other parts of the world, 
I always carried my flute with mfc to relieve the lonely hours 
at night and excite a social feeling among the natives. I had 
fluted my way, after the fashion of Goldsmith, through many 
a difficulty ; and now I was resolved to see what the magic 
of music would do in removing the prejudices of the Arabs. 
As soon as it was dark we had a good fire lit in the corner, 
and, pulling off our shoes, as custom required, we spread our 
mats close by, and sat down cosily to enjoy the cheerful blaze, 
my friends (the Southerner and the English Captain) smoking 
their chiboucks, while I brought forth my knapsack and com- 
menced putting the pieces of my flute together. The Arabs, 
who had begun to crowd in, were greatly interested in the 
strange instrument that I was getting under way ; and Yusef, 
who was rather proud of his superior civilization, sat by en- 
joying their remarks and giving us a running interpretation. 
Some thought it was a sort of pistol, with a large touch hole ; 
but this notion was ridiculed by the more knowing ones, who 
said it was plain enough to see that it was a new-fashioned 
pipe, and that they would soon see me put the bowl to it, and 
begin to smoke. At last I got all the pieces adjusted, and, 
commanding silence by a mysterious motion of the hand, com- 
menced playing that classical air of " Old Zip Coon"" which 
I dare say never was heard before among the ruins of Baalbek. 
There was the most breathless attention on all sides, inter- 
rupted only by suppressed exclamations of tahib ! tahib ! 
(good ! good !) whenever I blew a very shrill or false note 
and soon the women and children from the neighboring houses 
began to crowd in, and there was gradually a large circle 
formed around the room, the audience squatting down in rows, 
till there was scarcely space enough left to breathe. I blew 
away with all my might, for not only was I excited by the 



220 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



success of my experiment, but rather inspired by the music I 
was making, which I assure you was not bad. The familiar 
airs of home made me sentimental, and I merged into the 
doleful air of " Give me back my heart again ; oh ! give it 
back again !" which was a miserable failure ; not a damsel 
seemed disposed to listen to it. They commenced, in the very 
middle of the most pathetic strain, to call for the first tune ; 
so I had to return to " OM Zip Coon." When I had con- 
cluded, there was no end to the tahibs : Mr. Coon was a de- 
cided hit. In order to vary the entertainment, silence was 
commanded again, and Yusef was desired to explain that there 
would be a song ; that it was a song of an old black gentle- 
man who lived in America, who was a Pasha among the 
blacks ; that he was called Uncle Ned because he was so 
venerable, and, being very old, the hair all fell out of his 
head, and there was no hair at all in the place where the 
hair ought to grow ; that he hadn't any eyes to see with, and, 
consequently, was as blind as a post, or a stone wall, or any 
thing else that is supposed to be deficient in eyes ; that 
neither had he teeth to eat bread with, and he had to let the 
bread alone and eat something else ; that his fingers were as 
long as canes in the brake, which was about an average of 
sixteen feet ; and, eventually, that one day when he was out 
in the field, a horrible monster called Grim Death came along 
and caught him by the heel and carried him away, and he 
was never heard" of any more except in this song, which was 
written in commemoration of all these facts. Thereupon, 
having excited the most profound interest in the history of 
Uncle Ned, I launched forth into the song, keeping as near 
the tune as possible, and going through all the motions de- 
scriptive of the baldness of his head, the absence of his teeth 
and the length of his fingers. At length, when I arrived at 
the final catastrophe, where Grim Death seizes the old gentle- 
man by the heel, I made a sudden motion at the heel of ouf 
worthy host, who was sitting near by, completely upsetting 
him with fright, and causing a laugh from the audience that 
seemed as if it would never come to an end. It was the best 
hit of the evening, and completely removed all constraint 



YUSEF DANCES THE RAAS. 



221 



The women had gradually uncovered their faces, and the 
men were in such a good humor that they paid no attention 
to it ; and we were all as jovial as possible — showing that 
people all over the world are pretty much the same by na- 
ture, and that there are few races so barbarous as not to be 
moved by music and a spirit of sociability. I never found it 
to fail any where ; and never knew an instance of any ad- 
vance being made in a hearty, off-hand way, where it was 
not returned even more cordially — from the fact, perhaps, 
that it is so rarely done by travelers. But my triumph was 
of short duration. Yusef became inspired by the bright eyes 
of the Arab damsels, and soon carried away all my laurels. 
Standing forth in the centre of the room, he addressed the 
audience in the most impressive manner — -stating that with 
their permission he would perform the celebrated dance of 
his country, called the Haas, for which it was necessary that 
he should have a space cleared in the middle of the floor. 
This proposition was greeted by a general murmur of appro- 
bation. A space was soon cleared, the audience crowding 
back on top of each other against the walls, but all in the 
most perfect good-humor. Yusef now began to unwind him- 
self. He was in his choicest Arab costume, and fairly daz- 
zled with armor. His sash was almost interminable. Fran- 
cesco, the boy, pulled for five minutes, unwinding him all the 
time, as a spool of cotton on end might be unwound ; and 
when the armor was all taken off and the sash at an end, 
Yusef called for his sword, and stood forth ready for the dance. 
Never was there such a sensation among the damsels of 
Baalbek. He was the very cut of an Arab beau, whose at- 
tractions and accomplishments were not to be resisted by 
vain and foolish woman. Poising his sword in the air, he 
called for music, and the music struck up — your humble 
servant being the musician. Whiz ! went the sword through 
the air, cutting and slashing in all directions ; up cuts and 
down thrusts within an inch of the retreating noses of the 
audience, who were now tumbled over in regular heaps. 
The women could scarce suppress their screams ; the men 
cried Tahib ! Tahib ! and Yusef cut away in a perfect frenzy, 



222 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



till the first part of the performance, commencing with the 
sword exercise, was concluded. He then began in good earn- 
est the dance of the Raas ; gradually at first, with a tremulous 
motion of one side and a convulsive quivering of the other 
that seemed quite miraculous. I really began to think the 
fellow would go to pieces. His right leg kept running all 
round in a circle, while his right shoulder and arm danced a 
jig ; the whole of his left side kept rising and falling con- 
vulsively, and his back worked as if every joint had a distinct 
and independent movement. Tahib ! Tahib ! shouted the 
audience, and round and round ran the independent leg faster 
than ever ; and the left side worked, and the right side danced, 
and the back wriggled into the most convulsive motions, and 
Yusef looked just as much like one of the figures in a show, 
worked by wires, as any thing I ever saw, only a good deal 
more wiry. Some of the motions in this part of the dance 
were so ludicrous that the music had to stop suddenly for 
want of breath ; but the dance went on to the clapping of 
hands kept up by the Arabs. The concluding part of the 
performance consisted of dancing, fighting, and love-making 
all together. The djeered is thrown, the sword whirled over 
the head, hundreds of foes slain, skulls split open, and terrible 
wounds received in the heroic attempt to carry away the 
daughter of a Grand Sultan, who seems to be surrounded by 
difficulties. At last Yusef is mortally wounded, and he be 
gins to die by throwing his head back and getting very weak 
in the knees. Every bit of his body is convulsed with dying 
tortures ; shoulders, breast, elbows, legs, and all are writhing 
horribly ; by degrees he drops on one knee, and then on the 
other ; and his arms fall loosely, and his head tumbles over 
on his breast, and he is about to roll over perfectly dead, 
when he catches a glimpse of his lady-love. With a wild 
yell he springs to his feet again, seizes his sword, and lays 
about him so desperately that the audience begins to think it 
is no joke at all. It really seemed as if Yusef had entirely 
lost his senses ; the perspiration streamed down his face ; he 
snorted like a horse, and his eye? had something horribly 
wild and insane about them. I expected each moment to 



YUSEF 'DANCES THE RAAS. 



223 



see him cut somebody through the skull — knowing it to be a 
common piece of entertainment in these outlandish countries. 
But it was only a dying effort, this fit of desperation ; down 
he fell on his knees before his lady-love, gasped out the mad- 
ness of his love with his last breath, and died like a true 
lover with his head in her lap. The sensation was tremend- 
ous. Hands were clapped, tahibs shouted from all quarters, 
and the clatter of astonishment, admiration, and sympathy 
from the Arab damsels was perfectly overwhelming. Never 
did I feel so cut down in all my life ; old Zip Coon was com- 
pletely forgotten in the torrent of admiration drawn forth by 
the performances of Yusef. I quietly put the flute in my 
knapsack, and came to the conclusion that all triumphs are 
fleeting, and that the Raas dance is the greatest dance that 
ever was invented. 




YUSEF DANCING THE RAAS. 



Such were the demonstrations of satisfaction on the part of 
every female in the room, and the undisguised delight with 



224 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



which they returned Yusef's sidelong smiles, that there was 
not a male member of the audience who was not fired with 
jealousy and mistrust. Low murmurs began to arise between 
man and wife ; smothered rebukes were given by friends and 
relatives ; and fair faces began reluctantly to disappear, but 
not without parting glances at the Adonis of Arabs. That 
there was not a female heart in the crowd unscathed by his 
graces of person and flashing silks, as well as by the heroic 
courage which he had displayed in the affair of the Princess, 
was perfectly apparent. Even the husband of Yusef 's niece, 
who was we]l acquainted with the relationship existing be- 
tween his wife and that distinguished adventurer, did not 
seem altogether satisfied that their consanguinity would prove 
a barrier to all danger ; indeed, he looked at both parties 
with extreme suspicion ; but perceiving that there was no 
indication of any immediate danger (for they were discreet 
enough not to notice each other) he hastily left the house, 
climbed up on the roof, and relieved his mind in some degree 
by rolling the broken pillar over it furiously for the space of 
half an hour. 

Alas, I wish I could conscientiously say that there was no 
danger ; I wish Yusef had never stopped there ; I would blot 
out that night in tears more copious than were shed by the 
great poet who wept when he found Baalbek in ruins ; but a 
stern sense of duty compels me to proceed ; it shall never be 
said that I have smiled at human weakness, or attempted to 
shield the culpable from just and merited reproach. 

The guests having at a late hour retired to their respective 
homes, Yusef spread our mattresses on the floor, and fixed us 
comfortably for the night. His own mattress he left for fu- 
ture consideration. The husband of Yusef s niece carefully 
noted the manner in which we were arranged, and apparent- 
ly satisfied that all was right so far, he looked into every little 
pigeon-hole in the walls to make assurance doubly sure, and 
then looked at the door between our room and that in which 
himself and wdfe slept. There was a large wooden bolt at- 
tached to it, which he carefully fastened, and then pulled 
back and fastened again, so that he might be sure there was 



YUSEF DANCES THE RAAS. 225 

no deception about its being fast ; and then bidding us all 
good-night, he reluctantly departed through the front door — 
came back again in five minutes for a drink of water, looked 
at the door that was bolted, at the tall Southerner, the En- 
glish Captain and myself, then at Yusef — departed once more, 
and before we were asleep, slyly peeped in again to be 
quite certain that there was nothing wrong, closed the front 
door softly, and retired to the adjoining room, where he 
talked seriously to his wife — probably about the leak in his 
house — for more than an hour. By the time he had con- 
cluded, every body was apparently asleep. There were two, 
however, who were very far from being asleep. One was 
myself ; I could not help thinking that the inner door, although 
bolted on the right side for us, in case of an invasion from 
that quarter, was bolted on the wrong side for the husband 
of Yusef s niece, in case of an invasion from our side, which I 
regarded as much more to be apprehended. The other mem- 
ber of our party referred to as not being asleep, was Yusef 
himself. He had pulled his mattress up within a few feet of 
the bolted door, after every body was quiet, covered himself 
up carefully in the blankets, and commenced snoring imme- 
diately ; which was precisely what kept me awake — not the 
snoring but the suspicions aroused by it. Yusef never snored 
when he was asleep. I knew him too well for that ; he was 
always as wide awake when he snored as he ever was in his 
life. Consequently I kept a very small corner of my weather- 
eye open ; it was impossible to close it while the snoring con- 
tinued. A dim light from the dying embers in the fire, en- 
abled me to perceive, in the course of time, that Yusef was 
getting restless ; the snoring gradually stopped ; the blankets 
began to drop off, and he sat up on his mattress and looked 
cautiously around. Satisfied that all was right, he crept to 
the door, fumbled at the bolt for some minutes, and eventu- 
ally drew it back, without making any more noise than a 
mouse would have made under the same circumstances. 
The difficulty was to get the door open ; it was hung on 
wooden hinges, which, perhaps, had not been greased for 
some time. Yusef breathed hard a few moments, gathered 



226 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST, 



tresh courage, and commenced pulling cautiously at the door 
It opened a little way ; another pull ; it opened a little more ; 
another yet — it creaked — it creaked dreadfully ! Quick as 
lightning Yusef pushed it back, bolted it, covered himself up 
in his blankets, and commenced snoring again ; but there was 
evidently a commotion in the other room. The voice of a man 
shouted something fiercely — it was in Arabic — but doubtless 
it was — Who's there ! Under some circumstances it is diffi- 
cult to answer such a question ; under the present circum- 
stances Yusef considered it impossible; he only snored the 
louder, and heard the less. There is no doubt that the 
owner of the voice labored under the impression that some of 
us intended to rob him, for I heard him, both in my sleep 
and in my waking hours throughout the remainder of the 
night stumbling uneasily about the room. In the morning, 
Yusef, who had snored to the best of my belief without stop- 
ping from the moment he had so suddenly covered himself up 
in the blankets, set to work and beat the muleteers ; but not 
with his accustomed alacrity. His mind was depressed, and 
he looked so little refreshed by balmy slumber that I was in- 
duced to ask him what was the matter. He evinced some 
little confusion at first ; but quickly rallying, stated that he 
had suffered from a bad dream ; that he dreamt he saw a 
lion ; and the lion was going to attack us ; that he was un- 
armed at the time, but inspired by his courage, which never 
forsook him in any emergency, he crept toward the lion in 
the hope of getting him by the mane and choking him ; that 
j ust as he was about to put the lion to death, some invisible 
spirits pulled him back, and so they tormented him every 
time he got near to his foe, throughout the entire night. 

It was certainly an extraordinary dream. Possibly Yusef 
really dreamt it. I hope so ; many stranger dreams than that 
have been dreamt ; but I have never been able to rid my 
mind of the impression that th3 lion was very pretty, and not 
at all ferocious. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



A SOCIAL CHAT WITH YUSEF. 

Without exactly claiming to have control over the morals 
of our dragoman, I nevertheless considered it my duty to point 
out to Yusef the evils of those stringent measures adopted by 
the Arabs in their matrimonial relations, and to show him 
how much better it would be to abandon those absurd cus- 
toms at once. When the conversation ran on congenial sub- 
jects, such as love and war, his sagacity and enthusiasm were 
very remarkable ; and I was often surprised at the quickness 
of his perception, and the readiness with which he met all 
my arguments. 

" It seems to me, Yusef," said I, after we had finished 
breakfast, "that you Arabs are the most barbarous people on 
the face of the earth. Why, even the Hottentots give their 
women some liberty. You, however, not only cover their faces, 
but keep them in a state of abject slavery. How can you ever 
expect to be a virtuous people when your wives are nothing 
but slaves !" 

Yusef (with spirit). — "They are not such slaves as your 
excellency thinks. We shut them up and keep them at home 
when strangers are about — especially gentlemen like your 
excellency, who perform on the flute, and sing songs of an 
inspiring and captivating nature ; but, as a general thing, we 
treat them kindly. They exercise power enough over us now, 
and if they had greater liberty they would exercise a good 
deal more." 

General. — " Of course they would, and why not? It is 
the very perfection of civilization when unlimited power is 
given to woman. In America we never think of shutting our 



228 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



women up and keeping guard over them. They would soon 
mutiny against that. Though they are free as air, many of 
them consider that they are barbarously limited in power, 
even now It is nothing uncommon for them to hold conven- 
tions, for the purpose of denouncing the male sex, and assert- 
ing their right to seats in our National Legislature. Some of 
them even aspire to the Presidency. For all I know, there 
may be a female candidate nominated for that high office at 
this very moment." 

Yusef. — " Don't you whip 'em, sir ? Don't you lock 'em 
up, and give 'em the bastinado ?" 

General (indignantly). — "The bastinado, forsooth! I'd 
like to see such a thing as that tried in our country. Why, 
we have ladies who would cowhide a man if they knew he 
entertained such a thought ; and we have newspaper editors 
who compliment ladies for distinguishing themselves in that 
way. No, Yusef; we never use the bastinado. On the con- 
trary, there are persons of the male sex, or who assume to be 
of that sex, ever ready to join these spunky ladies in their con- 
ventions, and act entirely under their dictation. That such 
men will eventually aspire to petticoats is not at all improb- 
able." 

Yusef (highly excited).— " I'd shoot 'em; by Allah, sir, I'd 
gut 'em ! Miserable dogs ! I'd— no matter ! — proceed, sir — 
proceed !" 

General. — " Tell me, Yusef, in the name of common sense, 
which you know is the grand object of my crusade in this 
benighted region, what do the Arab women cover their faces 
for ? Fain would I probe to the bottom all these strange 
customs, and learn the reason thereof." 

Yusef. — " Now, verily, General, hast thou asked me a 
question that it is difficult to answer. It is the custom of the 
country, and, to the best of my belief, has been the custom 
for many centuries past." 

GenePvAL. — " But the custom is absurd, and ought to be 
abandoned at once. Don't you think so ?" 

Yusef. — " Again, that question is a poser. I have never 
considered it in the light of an absurd custom, having been 



A SOCIAL CHAT WITH YUSEF. 



229 



used to these things from infancy. To me, it seems exceed- 
ingly strange that the women of America don't cover their 
faces." 

General (somewhat nettled). — ''Why so, pray? They're 
not ashamed of their faces : why should they cover them?" 

Yusef. — " Pardon me ! I only meant that to my unedu- 
cated and untraveled eyes, it looks a little indiscreet. Beauty, 
General, is a rare and precious jewel : it doesn't do to show 
it too often." 

General. — " But what use is it if it be hidden under a 
mask, and never seen at all except by the lady's husband ? 
Every husband admires the beauty of his wife when other 
people admire it. If other people don't admire it. what in- 
citement is there for admiration on his part ? He must get 
accustomed to it in a month or two, just as the shepherd who 
lives on the mountain-top gets accustomed to the beauty of 
the scenery. To cover a woman's face up, is what we call 
hiding a light under a bushel." 

Yusef. — " This we regard as the philosophy of the thing : 
Every pretty woman is vain of her charms. It is the weak- 
ness of the sex. If we don't keep a sharp look-out, she'll 
cast them forth as snares to entrap mankind. That's wo- 
man's nature, when she's admired. Now, we hold that a 
wife has no right to cast snares upon any body but her hus- 
band." (I quite agreed with Yusef in this, and involuntarily 
thought of his strange dream concerning the lion.) " Hence, 
not being restrained by reason, because of her vanity, she must 
be restrained by masks, and sometimes by bolts and bars." 

General. — " True, very true, Yusef. I must confess that 
there is some foundation for your argument. There are ex- 
treme cases when bolts may be necessary." 

Yusef. — " It stands to reason, sir ; it arises from the love 
of flattery, which is the great weakness of woman. Have 
you no customs in your country, sir, equally strange and in- 
comprehensible at first sight ?" 

General. — "No, Yusef; thank heaven, we are clear of 
all such absurdities as this. Our most fashionable ladies not 
only keep their faces uncovered in pubhc, but frequently ap- 



230 



A CRt'SADE IN THE EAST. 



pear in ball-rooms and opera-houses, with scarcely more than 

a piece of gauze above the waist." 

Yusef. — * ; And don't they feel ashamed at all ?" 

General. — " By no means. Those whc desire to be dis- 
tinguished in the world of fashion, never feel ashamed of any 
thing that is fashionable. They take great pride and pleas- 
ure in making the exhibition. It shows a consciousness of 
purity ; because, if they were not certain that they could re- 
sist the effects of this display, of course they would not make 
it on any account." 

Yusef (with flashing eyes). — "I'd like to live there! 
Above all things. I'd like that — in another people. Most 
woDderful are the diversities of custom. An Arab woman 
would be disgraced were she to adopt such a fashion.* : 

General. — Of course : that results from the benighted 
condition of the female sex in your country. Your people are 
behind the times, Yusef. As civilization progresses, we cast 
aside all these barbarous prejudices. We approximate toward 
first principles. There was a time," even in our country, when 
a lady could not display her charms in public ; but of late 
years we have become fashionable tourists. We go to Europe 
every summer, and import the latest improvements in fashion 
and morals. No female now is considered worthy to mingle 
in the most stylish society, until she is up to the Parisian 
standard. We dance by Paris — dress by Paris — eat by Paris 
— drink by Paris — and I rather think the most fashionable cf 
us will soon sleep by Paris/' 

Ybsef. — InshallaJ where is all this to stop — especially 
in the matter of dress ?" 

General (a little confused). — "Where is it to stop ? Oh. 
that I can't tell you. Perhaps it w T on't stop at all till we 
reach that primitive state of simplicity from which we orig- 
inally fell. The Parisians are an extremely natural people, 
in some respects — not at all restrained in social life." 

Yusef (with a sigh). — ;, It must be a Paradise upon earth. 
But, then, I am told, that no man is entitled to more than one 
wife, by law. Can he send her home, or sell her, as we do, 
when he sees another more beautiful ?" 



A SOCIAL CHAT WITH YUSEF. 



231 



General (smiling). — " jNo, Yusef; he can't sell her, "but he 
can get a divorce. If he be rich, he can buy it without much 
trouble ; and if he be poor, h3 can get drunk and maltreat her, 
and then swear she is not a good and true wife ; so that the 
law, which is very sagacious in these matters, perceiving that 
there are faults on both sides, and that the parties can never 
live happily together, grants a divorce. 1 ' 

Yusef. — " A most admirable law ! But, yet, it seems to 
me, it would be better to have several wives. Woman is an 
evil at best — indeed, I may say. the root of all evil. Now, 
your excellency knows that by mixing two or more poisons 
together, a very harmless beverage may be produced. We 
consider that if a man be afflicted with a quarrelsome wife, 
who poisons his happiness, the best thing he can do is to get 
some more poison, and mix the two together ; if two poisons 
won't answer, he should mix an additional number in the 
same way. The remedy is certain to effect a cure. When a 
woman has two or three fellow-wives to quarrel with, she can't 
spare much time to quarrel with her husband. Let a man act 
discreetly ; and profess to love one a little better than another 
whom he originally professed to love best, and there will soon 
be a very lively state of hostility between the ladies of his 
household. While they are fighting, he can take it easy, and 
smoke the pipe of peace. That, sir, is the philosophy of com- 
bining evils : curing a wound by making another ; the true 
principle of counter-irritation." 

Somehow, it was useless to argue with Yusef. He always 
got the better of me ; and this naturally excited my indigna- 
tion. I, therefore, decided the matter by telling him it was 
useless to talk such nonsense to me ; that the Arabs were a 
very wicked and ignorant race at best, and he was the more 
to blame for entertaining such monstrous doctrines, as he had 
enjoyed the advantages of intercourse with a more enlight- 
ened people. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



THE GREEK BISHOP. 



Before leaving Baalbek I went to the G-reek convent to 
have a social chat with the patriarch, who was represented 
to be a very hospitable and intelligent man. It is situated 
down toward the low T er part of the town, not far from the 
Temple of Santa Barbara. The entrance is through a dilap- 
idated court-yard, which serves as a sort of caravanserai for 
camels and mules ; and the convent is little better than the 
rest of the hovels around it, except that it is larger and 
higher. There is a church attached to it of ancient and 
ruinous appearance, with a few tawdry ornaments and mis- 
erable pictures in the interior. A G-reek monk, w T ho acted as 
our cicerone, told us that this church contained the most val- 
uable relic of any church in Syria ; that it was not commonly 
exhibited to strangers, but he would take the liberty of show- 
ing it to our excellencies. Having thus excited our curiosity, 
he proceeded, with great caution and solemnity, to draw 
back some small black curtains that covered a hole in the 
wall, and by degrees revealed to us the hole, which was cased 
around with a black frame and covered with a pane of glass ; 
but I candidly confess I could see nothing in it, nor could I, 
after the most persevering inquiries all round, ascertain that 
any body else had seen any thing, or that there was any thing 
there to be seen. It was a good deal like some of the won- 
derful things one is called upon to admire now and then in 
Italy — you go a great way to see them, and are expected to 
be in raptures, but for your life you can't find out what all 
the talk is about ; there is nothing to be seen, We paid a 
piastre, however, for the information, and I would recom* 



THE GREEK BISHOP. 



233 



mend all travelers who go to Baalbek to do likewise ; they 
may see something, probably a bone of the ass that Baalam 
rode, or a reflected image of the face, with its full comple- 
ment of ears. 

The reception room of the convent was furnished in the 
Turkish fashion, with a low platform extending round the 
walls on three sides, upon which were spread rugs of every 
variety of color. There were no chairs, nor any other furni- 
ture except a few bad prints, and a good supply of chiboucks 
hung up around the walls. It was a great nuisance to be 
obliged to take off our shoes, as on all occasions, no matter 
how many houses we went into, how dirty they were, or how 
cold it was : whether there were rugs on the ground, or mats, 
or, what was most common, puddles of mud, our dragoman 
protested that if we kept on our shoes it would be a mortal 
offense to the inmates of the house. I was often disposed to 
rebel against this insane practice ; but you know when one is 
in Home he must be romantic ; when one is in Syria he must 
bear with serious inconveniences, not the least of which is 
keeping up a good understanding with the natives by keep- 
ing the feet bare. 

The bishop, a venerable man, with a beard of patriarchal 
length, received us with great kindness and cordiality. He 
said it was seldom he had the pleasure of meeting American 
travelers there, and regretted that we had not taken up our 
quarters in the convent. While we were talking, coffee 
and chiboucks were brought in by a domestic, and gracefully 
presented to us in the Oriental style. As it is characteristic 
of the East, I may as well tell you the manner in which one 
is honored on paying a visit. You enter the room, furnish- 
ed, as above stated, with rugs all round, make your bow, and 
are politely motioned to a seat ; that is, to a seat on the floor. 
If you can do it, you squat down as much like a tailor as pos- 
sible ; if you can't, you stretch out both legs and get your 
back against the wall. Do let me persuade you to try it, if you 
want to know how odd it feels. The form of salutation de- 
pends pretty much on the relative rank of each party. Where 
there is not much ceremony it is merely a bow and the hand 



234 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



is placed over the breast ; where the civility is intended to be 
very marked, as in the native form, the visitor makes a dive 
at the hem of the host's garment as if he would catch it up 
and kiss it ; but the host, perceiving the intended honor, dives 
down at the same moment to prevent it, and, as if by acci- 
dent catches the hand of his guest and helps him up with it 
part of the way ; w T hen each touches his breast, mouth, and 
forehead with his own hand ; sometimes repeating the dive, 
but this is only when a man is electioneering for some office, 
or calls to borrow a few hundred piasters, in which case he 
dives down a great many times. 

Supposing you to be seated now, a servant enters, bearing 
a tray, upon which are several cups of coffee about the size 
of egg-cups, and these are handed round and presented with 
a graceful bow 7 to each visitor. The x coffee is as thick as choc 
olate, and at first it may lodge in your throat, but after a 
while one learns to like it. Chiboucks are then brought. The 
stems are about six feet in length, and the bowl being placed 
on the ground in a little brass pan at the proper distance, the 
mouthpiece is whirled around dextrously by the domestic, 
who calculates the distance so nicely that he brings it within 
the sixteenth of an inch of its destination. The smoking 
begins, and if you have good Djebel or Latakia tobacco, it is, 
as my friend the English captain says, quite stunning. Con- 
versation goes on between the whiffs, and is as lively as such 
conversation can be where one naturally thinks in English, 
communicates his ideas to his dragoman in Italian or French, 
has them translated into Turkish, Arabic, or Greek, and 
learns the result in about ten minutes from the time of start- 
ing. I often, after a good deal of difficulty, got out a joke 
and made my interpreter understand the full bearings of it; 
when he would set to work, jabbering in some horrible un- 
known tongue, taking so long to tell it that the whole thing 
would quite escape my memory, and it was only in about a 
quarter of an hour after, that an explosion of laughter would 
startle me out of my cloud of smoke ; for a joke is never so stale 
or so trifling as not to cause a laugh in the East. As I made 
it a poinb >o*vever never to talk French or Italian to Yusef 



THE GREEK BISHOP. 



235 



where there was a probability of these languages being un- 
derstood (by which means I passed for rather a learned man), 
he translated from English in the present case. The worthy 
patriarch felt a good deal interested in the fact, usually an- 
nounced by Yusef in terms of great pomposity, that I had 
traveled a long way, and had been in California. The old 
gentleman had heard some fabulous accounts of California, 
and, after some exclamations of wonder at seeing before him 
a live person from that strange land, he delivered himself as 
follows: "It is a wonderful country, I know; thousands of 
miles off; away at the other side of London. They dig up 
m whole mountains of gold there, and catch fish without eyes. 
God Almighty kills them because they are wicked ; also 
food is scarce. The sun is very hot ; there is great thirst ; like- 
wise men burrow holes in the ground the same as rats. Oh, 
I don't want to go to California. It is a bad country. Better 
stay here in Baalbek and praise God." I thought so too, and 
desired Yusef to tell his Reverence that it would be better for 
him not to go to California, if he had any notion that way ; 
in fact, that he would do much better reclaiming benighted 
Arabs in Baalbek than digging for gold on the banks of the 
Sacramento, and would find a more fertile harvest in his own 
professional line. 

We had further conversation on various topics, after which, 
with many kind wishes, the patriarch bid us good-by, and 
wished us a pleasant tour through Syria ; expressing at the 
same time his regret that we had not found it convenient to 
come at once to the convent instead of going to a native 
house. 

I went down again during the forenoon to the ruins, and 
made a sketch of the Temple of the Sun and a general view 
of the whole of Baalbek. Near the main ruin is a very 
beautiful little Temple, which I omitted to mention before, 
built chiefly of marble, and very highly decorated. It re- 
minded me a good deal of the Temple of the Winds at Athens. 
The form is octagonal, and there is a portico all round, sup- 
ported by eight Corinthian columns, between which in the 
niches are the remains of pedestals upon which formerly stood 



236 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



statues. The Greek priests suppose this to be the tower of 
Santa Barbara. By some travelers it is compared to the 
Temple of Janus at Rome. Two little streams of water run 
through the town, one of w r hich passes under this temple. 

One of the most remarkable ruins in Baalbek is that of 
the ancient mosque, in which is seen the tomb of Saladin. I 
had some do lbts as to this being the ruin of a mosque ; but, 
in the absence of any better information than that of our 
dragoman, had to take it as such. There is a high wall, in- 
closing a space of some hundreds of yards square, in which 
are rows of vast arches, sustained by pillars, covering the 
entire interior. Looking through underneath it has the ap- m 
pearance of a perfect forest of pillars. iNear the entrance is 
a little tomb, built of rough stone, apparently of Saracenic 
construction, upon one end of wrhich is an inscription in 
Arabic. This is said to be the tomb of the famous Saladin, 
the. conqueror of the Christian hosts on the fields of Hatm 
and of Esdraelon. I did not read the inscription ; so I am 
unable to tell you w 7 hat it means. 

There are some few objects of interest in the w r ay of ruined 
w r alls and arches, containing patches of the antique, scattered 
about through the towm and the neighborhood , all of which 
we thoroughly examined ; but they are so much like any 
other ruins that the interest depends mainly upon their being 
in Baalbek, where every body can not go to see them, as in 
Home or Athens. 

Tired of rambling about, I sat down on an eminence over- 
looking the ruins, and began to think seriously and soberly 
of all that I had seen, and to divest myself of the first en- 
thusiastic impressions, so as to arrive at some reasonable idea 
of what Baalbek must have been in the days of its glory. 
Sober second thought is a good deal like a written contract ; 
it brings both parties (the imagination and the judgment) to 
a proper understanding, and leaves no room for visionary spec- 
ulation or loose interpretation. 

That Baalbek w T as a city abounding in fine edifices is suf- 
ficiently apparent from the magnificence of its ruins. One 
can not but deplore the desolation of those splendid temples, 



THE GREEK BISHOP. 



237 



and the loss of the many works of art buried there, among 
which must have been some of the choicest of ancient times ; 
and while there is so much left to admire it is not improbable 
that, in the lapse of centuries, there may have been much 
destroyed equally worthy of admiration. But that Baalbek 
ever was a very extensive or very important city is not. I 
think, rendered probable by any evidence now existing. The 
foundations of the ancient walls, which can be clearly traced, 
embrace but a small area of ground, certainly not sufficient 
for a very large city ; and its position, shut in among the 
mountains of Lebanon, two days distant from any seaport, 
and not on the usually traveled route from the interior cities 
of Asia Minor, indicates that it was not supported by com- 
merce. It is also probable that the Temple of the Sun and 
the Palace were the most important of all the public edifices ; 
and that the streets were narrow and badly paved, without 
side walks, as in all the cities of the East, and the residences 
of ordinary construction ; because even a small city could not 
be embraced in so limited a space with any thing like fine 
streets or large houses. If the implements of agriculture were 
not a good deal better than any that exist in Syria at the 
present day (and it is said they are about the same as were 
used in scriptural times), the plain of Bukaa must have been 
more indebted to Nature than to the cultivation of man for 
its reputed fertility. Probably there were more trees on it, 
and some gardens and vineyards for the supply of the town. 
The inhabitants must have lived on something, and it is not 
likely they had much else to eat except what they produced 
on this plain. But there is no evidence of a luxurious style 
of living. If ever there were carriages, they must have trav- 
eled in the air, with mules or horses at each end, as they do 
now ; for there is nothing to show that there were roads fit 
for wheeled vehicles to run on. Sometimes a piece of an old 
Roman road is seen along the coast, and poor enough it must 
have been in its best days ; but I could discover nothing of 
the kind about Baalbek. I think the inhabitants of the glo- 
rious City of the Sun rode on donkeys. At all events, donkeys 
must have been convenient in climbing through the streets, 



238 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



unless the style of paving was a good deal better than any 
thing done throughout the East in modern times, of which 
there is no evidence in the specimens that remain. 

In sober truth, the more I thought about Baalbek as it 
was, the more I became impressed with the idea that^e are 
apt to magnify the grandeur of every thing ancient, and en- 
courage false impressions by feeding the mind with the poetry 
of the past. There was as much reality then as there is at 
present ; men were human and all their works were human ; 
and the ruins of those works derive much of their effect from 
the lapse of time. To an imaginative mind a broken column 
is more beautiful covered with the mould of ages, than one 
of precisely the same form, new and complete. There must 
have been a time when those works were new, and when 
contemporary architects and critics held the same opinion of 
them, compared with something more antique, as we do now 
of what is done hi our day, compared with what was done 
then. The enchantment that distance lends is lent to all 
these temples and relics of ancient grandeur with a most 
liberal hand. I saw in Jerusalem a picture of Baalbek re- 
built as it originally stood, beautifully drawn by a competent 
artist ; and, comparing it with drawings of the ruins, I must 
say that Baalbek in ruins, with a little room for the imagina- 
tion, is much grander and more imposing than Baalbek, com- 
plete as it existed in ages past, with nothing beyond mere 
reality to look to. 

But it will not do to indulge in this train of thought. Strip 
the past of all its romance, and there is little left to write 
about. What reader will be satisfied with plain facts ? what 
reader will be satisfied with the simple unadorned truth — 
except the few that I hope to honor me with a perusal of 
these pages ? and it is only to that rare but enlightened class 
that I dare to address such unpopular views. 

In my rambles about the village of Baalbek I was struck 
with the beauty of the children, and the extreme youthfulness 
of some of the Arab mothers. I saw several young females, 
not more than twelve or fourteen years of age, with babies in 
their arms, evidently their own; and I was told that this is 



THE GREEK BISHOP. 



239 



quite common throughout Syria. Many of the women are 
very beautiful — much more so, I think, than either the Cir- 
cassian or the Turkish women. It was quite enchanting, 
their fine complexions, dark eyebrows, and flashing eyes ; and 
for regularity and delicacy of features I have seldom seen 
them equaled, except in other parts of Syria. In Nazareth I 
saw some of the best formed and most beautiful women I had 
ever seen in any country ; I believe it is noted as much for 
the beauty of its female population among tourists as for its 
historical interest ; but at no place did I see what I really 
thought approached the perfection of beauty in so high a de- 
gree as in Bethlehem. The women of Bethlehem are abso- 
lutely bewitching. I never saw such perfect profiles, such 
eyes and eyebrows, and such delicate little hands and feet. 
Not that I mean to say that they are at all to be compared 
in all the higher attributes of beauty to our own fair country- 
women, for that would be sacrilege. There is nothing in the 
East, or in Europe either, or any where else that I have ever 
visited, to compare with the ladies of Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
and Washington. Talk of Parisian beauties ! Lively and 
vivacious they are, to be sure ; but not dignified, not queenly, 
not gentle and modest. Talk of English beauties ! Grand 
enough and fair, but not graceful. Italian beauties ; dark, 
dull, and greasy. German, fat and florid ; Turkish, tallowy 
and buttery ; all well enough in their way ; but. Mashalla ! 
it- won't do to mention them in the same breath with Ameri- 
can beauties. 

And now good-by to Baalbek. We are off for Damascus, 
galloping out through the ruins and over the prostrate relics 
of the past as merrily as if they were only so much rubbish. 



CHAPTER XXVIII, 



THE ARAB MULETEER. 

A most indispensable and striking character in Syrian 
travel is the Arab muleteer. Every party of Frangi has its 
baggage train of mules ; and generally every mule has its 




MUSTAFA, THE ARAB MULETEER. 



separate owner, who does the driving, feeding, loading, and 
smoking. These mules are hired at Beirut, or wherever the 
starting point may be, by the dragoman, who makes his own 



THE ARAB MULETEER. 



241 



bargain with the muleteers. For a mule and driver the 
usual price is ten to fifteen piasters a day. On this sum the 
muleteer must feed himself and mule, and pay all his ordinary 
expenses throughout the journey. It is not much to be sure , 
only forty or fifty cents a day for personal attendance, expenses 
on the road, and risk and interest on capital ; but it seems to 
be enough, for at the end of the journey our men appeared to 
have sufficient left to keep them till the next trip 

The Arab muleteer is a practical philosopher and man of 
the world. There is nothing to trouble him but his mule, 
and that only troubles him when it wakes him up by running 
off the road or throwing him into a ditch. He wants but 
little here below, and has a happy knack of getting that little 
almost free of expense. His mule must be fed or it will die 
in the course of time, but that want he supplies by taking the 
oats and barley out of the trough where the horses of the 
Howadji feed at night, and putting them in the place where 
his mule ought to be feeding. He does this when the drago- 
man is not present, because if the dragoman saw it, there 
would certainly be an unpleasant state of feeling between the 
parties. The muleteer is a man of peace ; he wishes to get 
along in the world as quietly as possible ; hence he feeds his 
mules as far as practicable at the expense of others, and says 
nothing about it, from a natural repugnance to disturbances 
of the peace. To be sure the horses of the Howadji sometimes 
look unaccountably lank and dispirited ; and the mules un- 
accountably thriving and frisky, but what difference does 
that make to the muleteer ? If it makes any difference at all 
it is in his favor ; it prolongs the journey, adds so much to 
his pay, and affords him in some degree an equivalent for the 
beatings which he daily receives from the dragoman. Besides 
what the horses lose in flesh the mules gain. Sometimes the 
dragoman swears that he gives the horses a bushel of barley 
apiece at night, and they don't seem to be a bit the better for 
it next morning ; there must be thieves about ; he determines 
to watch them, and to shoot the first man whose hand he 
sees in the horse-trough. At last the horses grow so lank and 
dejected that he does watch ; he sees a hand in the baney ; 

L 



242 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST, 



it is the hand of the muleteer. The shooting is postponed til! 
next morning on account of the danger of wounding the 
horses ; but the muleteer is whipped with a cane till he swears 
by the beard of the Prophet he will never do so again. Fox 
a few days the horses look better ; but this doesn't alter the 
general principle, because the mules begin to look just as lean 
and spiritless as the horses did before. The muleteer is willing 
to be honest ; he would like to be on good terms with the 
world generally ; but it is not in his nature, or any other 
man's nature to stand such treatment as this. Hence he re- 
sumes his previous policy as soon as he can safely do so, and 
continues to be whipped occasionally when caught with his 
hand in the wrong place. Whipping, however, is one of the 
ills that the flesh of the muleteer is heir to. He takes it hard 
apparently, but it goes easy enough in reality. A good deal 
of the pain of whipping is mental, as any school-boy can 
testify. With him, it is only skin deep ; his skin is tough 
from exposure, and is not readily affected. 

He takes life easy, as a matter of personal convenience , 
sometimes sleeping on the top of the baggage, which is on 
the top of the mule, and sometimes trotting along with his 
comrades, listening to pleasant stories of genii and dragons, 
or telling some pretty tough ones himself, but always in that 
happy and contented frame of mind which evinces an entire 
absence of care. Clothing never annoys him at all ; a shirt 
or two and an old sash last him a lifetime ; breeches he wears 
little or none; shoes are superfluous, except when his circum- 
stances are affluent. What if he have nothing to eat now 
and then? He can smoke the pipe of bliss, and sleep the sleep 
of oblivion. What if he be out of tobacco ? No matter; the 
Howadji will give him some. Moreover, he knows where the 
bag is kept, and can help himself, provided nobody be looking 
on. Food is the least of his wants. A bunch of grapes or figs 
and a piece of leather bread satisfy all his necessities in this 
respect ; and occasionally there are pots and pans that come 
in as a sort a relish, to be licked when the dragoman has 
been drinking a little arrack, and feels unusually good-na- 
tured. A very happy fellow is the Arab muleteer, take him 



THE ARAB MULETEER. 



243 



altogether, sleeping and smoking his way through life on a 
capital of one mule. When he gets rich by making a fortune 
of ten dollars, he buys a small ass, so that he can ride after 
his mule, and boast an ass of his own ; and then he assumes 
the honorable position of a Howadji among muleteers, and is, 
to all intents and purposes, 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 

About noon we left the ruins of Baalbek behind us, and 
proceeded through the plain of Bukaa toward Damascus. 
Our road lay along the base of Anti-Lebanon. The aspect 
of the who] e country was sterile and desolate in the extreme, 
There was not a shrub on the wayside to relieve the utter bar- 
renness of the scene, or intercept the dazzling glare of the sun, 
which even now in midwinter had something left of its sum- 
mer fierceness. The weather was not warm ; but the whit- 
ish cast of the earth and the unclouded brilliancy of the sky, 
gave that intensity of light so characteristic of Syria, and 
which is so destructive to the sight that nearly half the inhab- 
itants are afflicted with ophthalmia. Not far from the outer 
walls of Baalbek, we saw the quarries from which the stone 
for the Temple of the Sun and all the public edifices was 
taken. Large gaps, in the form of an amphitheatre, are cut 
in the solid rock, from which the immense blocks of stone in 
the castle were taken. The ground or bottom of the quar- 
ries is covered with detached blocks, cut away, trimmed, and 
ready for transportation. It is a strange sight to see these 
pieces there, just as they were left in ages past, fresh from 
the hands of the masons. One block of stone is of immense 
length. It is said to be larger and longer than any found in 
the ruins of Baalbek I think our dragoman said the length 
was sixty-seven feet. The Arabs have another legend con- 
nected with this stone, rather harder to credit than the story 
of the column. They say that the Sultan, when he was 
building the Castle of Baalbek, found all the men in his king- 
dom unable to remove this stone, so great was its weight. A 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 



24£ 



woman, standing near, and seeing all their efforts unavailing, 
said ; " Upon my soul ! a nice set of fellows you are not to 
be able to carry a little stone !" " Little !" quoth they ; "do 
you call this little ?" " To be sure I do," said the woman ; 
" a mere nothing. If you were men you could carry it." 
" Hear her !" said they. " Why, one wouid think you could 
carry it yourself, the way you talk." " Carry it ! Of course 
I can," said she ; whereupon she laid hold of the stone, lifted 
it up on her back, and trotted all the way with it to Baalbek, 
where she laid it down by the castle- wall. " Now," said she 
to the Sultan, who was superintending the work, " give me 
ten thousand piastres for carrying this stone here." " May I 
be kicked like a dog if I do," said the Sultan, in a rage. 
"What! have all my men disgraced, and then pay a slave 
of a woman for doing it ! Get thee away, wretch !" " Oh, 
ho!" said the woman; "is that the way you talk?" Where- 
upon she seized the Sultan by the back of the neck, and pitched 
him headlong into a neighboring ditch, giving him a kick as 
he went. " By my soul !" quoth she, " men are forgetting 
their place nowadays. They are getting as impertinent and 
conceited as popinjays." With that she seized hold of the 
stone again, tumbled it over on her back, and trotted all the 
way back with it to the quarry, where the workmen were 
still looking at one another in silent astonishment. " There," 
said the woman, pitching the stone down ; "I told you so ! 
You had better go now and help the Sultan out of the ditch. 
He's floundering about there like a mud-turtle." Saying 
which, she slapped the chief workman heels over head, be- 
cause he was staring at her, and went off dancing the Haas, 
since which time the stone has remained just as she left it. 
The Arabs pointed it out to us, and said there w r as no doubt 
about the truth of the story, for the stone w 7 as in the very 
same spot. That they believed every w r ord of it themselves 
was quite evident ; and we, of course, believed as much as 
w r e could. 

Passing some ancient tombs on the left, we descended into 
a rocky valley, called Wady Ain Tihebeh, or the valley of 
the well. Here there were some camels feeding near by the 



24o 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



fountain. They had come over from Damascus with packs 
of merchandise for Baalbek ; and so picturesque they looked, 
all lying down in a circle, with their masters sitting on the 
ruined fountain smoking, that I fain had to stop and make a 
sketch of them. Soon after, we came to the village of Tihe- 
beh, a miserable collection of huts, with the white dome of a 
mosque in the centre. About this point we struck off to the 
left from the plain of Bukaa, and shortly came to the valley 
of ISTebusheet ; from which we climbed up a very rocky path, 
hardly practicable for our horses, to the village of Nebusheet. 
In this village there is a mosque containing a large tomb, 
called by the inhabitants the Tomb of the Prophet Nebu- 
sheet. None others but the followers of JNTebusheet live in 
the village, and they are known as Meitmaleh. They revere 
the tomb of their prophet as the Mohammedans do at Mecca ; 
but it is only in secret or among themselves that they dare 
to avow their belief. When among the Turks they pray like 
Turks, and profess to acknowledge the superior power of Mo- 
hammed ; but they are looked upon generally as heretics, 
and are not admitted to all the privileges of the Moham- 
medan faith. For instance, they can not go to Mecca, or 
enter the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. In the valley be- 
yond Nebusheet there is a rapid stream of good water, from 
which the village is supplied. The labor required to carry 
the water up the rocky path, a distance of nearly a mile, 
must be prodigious. The Arab men know very well that it 
is harder work than smoking the chibouck ; so they attend to 
the smoking, and make the women and children carry the 
water. We met in the pass some thirty or forty women and 
children, with scarce any thing but rags on them, bearing 
great earthen pitchers on their heads ; and yet they toiled up 
the rocks singing merrily, as if theirs was as happy a life as 
any ; perhaps it was. About the same number were going 
down, being thus continually engaged in the hardest possible 
labor, while the men were sitting up in the village, smoking 
or doing nothing. I thought that in warm weather it must 
keep half the population of Nebusheet thirsty to keep the 
other half supplied with water. The stream below is called 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 



247 



the river of Surgoya ; and is a pretty strong stream for its size, 
driving several mills. At one of these mills we stopped to 
lunch. The hoppers were going at a great rate, and I peep- 
ed in to see how the grinding was done. The miller wore a 
turban, and had so much dust in his beard that he looked 
like an old Pasha. " JS'Iarhabba" said he, which means how 
d'ye do, or good morning, or something of the kind; " Mar- 
habba" said I, and I crept in through the low doorway. 
Now, I had seen some few mills in my time, but never such 
a mill as this. The whole machinery consisted of a round 
rough stone, with a hole through it, in which was wedged 
a' thick shaft of wood. At the bottom of the shaft were some 
paddles, against which the water dashed at one side, turning 
the shaft, and with the shaft the grindstone. A bag of wheat 
was hung over the hopper, to which was fastened a piece of 
stick that ran over the stone, and by its vibration jerked out 
the wheat. The miller, seeing my wonder, thought it arose 
from inability on my part to understand the complexity of all 
this machinery ; and with great good-nature he explained the 
whole process in Arabic, pointing with much satisfaction at 
each part, and showing me by a whirling motion of the arm 
that it was the going round of the grindstone that ground the 
wheat. This idea of the wonderful manner in which the wheat 
was reduced to meal had such a hold upon his imagination 
that he jumped on the grindstone to stop it, in order that I 
might see for myself. But the stone wouldn't stop imme- 
diately, and it was only after being tilted on his back once or 
twice that the worthy- miller succeeded in getting himself 
braced against a post so as to stop the mill. Then he took 
up a handful of the meal, and showed me that it was really 
ground by that same machinery, which he made still clearer 
to my mind by a copious dissertation in Arabic on grist-mills 
as a general thing. " Tahib /" said he, signifying " good." 
'•' Tahib'' said I, and crept out through the same hole that I 
entered, very much pleased with my visit. 

On leaving the mill, we passed through a long winding 
valley, hemmed in on the right and left by low monotonous 
hills, dotted over with oak bushes, and uninhabited for many 



248 



A CRUSADE EN THE EAST. 



miles, save by a few goat-herds. We were so disgusted with 
the monotony of this valley that we forgot to ask the name. 
Ascending and descending through several passes, we at 
length entered another valley, through which runs a stream 
that waters the valley of Zebdene. Yusef had gone on to 
the village to look out for lodgings ; and my two friends and 
myself, tired of lagging behind with the mules, pushed on 
for Zebdene, in hopes of reaching it before dark. Crossing 
the stream in half an hour or so, we ascended a hill on the 
other side, and here we found two roads going nearly in the 
same direction and of nearly equal size. We took the upper 
one, which of course was the wrong one. By the time we 
had ridden a mile it was quite dark, and we found from the 
lights in another direction that we had made a mistake. 
There being no other path, we had to retrace our steps, which 
is not pleasant in Syria, where every step is a matter of study 
for both horse and rider, and stepping in the dark especially. 
We returned again to the valley, from which we heard the 
muleteers coming down the side of the mountain, shouting 
loudly to the jaded animals. They reached us presently, and 
we all pushed on together for Zebdene. It was one of the 
most pleasant rides we had enjoyed during our tour. The 
moon came out. as we ascended the banks of the stream, and 
it became a mild, clear night, with the towering mountains in 
full view all around us, and the snow-capt heights of Djebel- 
esh-Sheik glimmering in the distance. The sharp cry of a 
jackal from the ravine on the other side of the stream had a 
wild and startling effect in the stillness of the night ; and the 
strange stories of Eleas and the muleteers about robberies 
and murders in these lonesome glens made us involuntarily 
look toward every thicket on the roadside. It was not an 
agreeable idea, take it altogether, that of having our legs cut 
off, as was done with one traveler, or our skulls battered in 
with clubs, as another was served not long before, or even to 
be politely requested to give up our money., and compelled to 
make the rest of our tour on charity. Yusef had taken with 
him all the guns, pistols, and swords — and, worse than that, all 
the propensity for fighting that was in the party. We might 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 



248 



have fought upon a pinch, but I believe we preferred not fight- 
mg. For my own part, I had made up my mind, if attacked 
by the robbers, to offer them my old coat, two shirts, a tooth- 
brush, a small pocket comb, some sketches of Baalbek, and a 
few short-hand notes from which these pages are written, to- 
gether with a draft on my friend the Southerner, who was 
kindly paying my way to Alexandria, where I expected a re- 
mittance. I had likewise about me some small paper money, 
amounting to twenty kreutzers (sixteen cents), payable in 
Austria in the course of forty or fifty years ; a letter of intro- 
duction to the Pasha of Egypt, two Seidlitz powders, and a 
pocket-compass, which, together with an expired commission 
as third lieutenant in the revenue service, I intended de- 
livering to the chief of the robbers sooner than shed one drop 
of blood, and requesting him as a favor to take any thing else 
about my person or in my knapsack that he might find use- 
ful. Fortunately, however, for the reader and myself, we 
met no robbers, or, if we did, they were so terribly afraid of 
us that they passed on without shooting. 

"We soon came into the beautiful and fertile neighborhood 
of Zebdene. Signs of civilization, such as we had not seen 
since leaving Beirut, began to appear on both sides of the 
road. Every thing quite reminded us of home. The road 
was broad and plain, and the gardens were well hedged with 
bushes. Rustic gateways, covered with running roses, peep- 
ed out from clumps of trees ; the gurgling of springs and the 
soft echo of distant voices made a pleasant music in the night 
air; and as we rode along under the shade of overhanging 
trees, and looked through the vistas of foliage on each side, 
the running vines hanging in festoons through the vineyards, 
and the groves of fig trees and olives were lit up with a glow 
of moonlight, and vividly brought to mind our early impres- 
sions of the beauties of Eden. As we entered the village, it 
was a pleasant variety to find none of that shadowless and 
parched appearance about it that characterized all the vil- 
lages we had seen before. The houses were half hidden 
among trees* with little green patches of ground about them, 
and though rudely constructed of mud and stone, like all we 



250 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



had seen, yet they were evidently larger and more commo- 
dious. We rode on some distance looking around ns for Yusef, 
starting up sleepy dogs, and exciting the wonder of the natives 
in our search, calling Yusef, Yusef! as we went, but it was 
not until we had reached the farthest extremity of the village 
that Yusef made his appearance. Alas, I grieve to tell it f 
his face was very red, and he staggered a good deal, and la- 
bored under some difficulty in getting out his words ; in short, 
it was quite plain he had been drinking arrack — a thing that 
he did a little too often for our satisfaction. " Come dis way 
genelmen," said he, " I'm got you a very good house. My 
niece live here — she gone down to Damascus now, but her 
husband very good man." Here was another of Yusef ; s 
nieces ; I was not sorry to hear that she was gone to Damas- 
cus ; for somehow Yusef always wanted to delay us when his 
nieces were at home. The house was very nice and com- 
fortable — one of the best we had seen in our travels ; it was 
situated in an inclosure, fenced in by high hedges, with a rus- 
tic gateway in front covered with rose bushes, and had alto- 
gether a rural and picturesque effect in the moonlight. The 
Arabs sitting about the door smoking their chiboucks. and the 
mules standing under the bushes with their packs, while the 
muleteers ran about shouting at a great rate and doing a 
great deal of work that amounted to nothing, were all that 
reminded us that we were in a foreign land. Without them 
we might readily have fancied that we were in a quiet little 
country village at home. . 

The husband of Yusef 's niece received us with great kind- 
ness and hospitality. A good fire was blazing in the corner, 
near which he spread mats for us, and while we were enjoy- 
ing the cheeful glow of the fire, he brought us coffee and 
pipes. Here let me tell you that you who take your ease at 
home, don't know the luxury of coffee and tobacco. Syria in 
the month of December is the place to find it out. You get 
up in the morning, after suffering all the tortures that vermin 
can inflict during the night, eat a hasty breakfast, and are 
off before sunrise. For six hours you climb scraggy mount- 
ains and descend horrible precipices, and then sit down on a 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 



251 



rock by the roadside or near some ruined Khan, to eat a 
chicken and some leather bread ; then the same riding is re- 
peated till night, when you feel as if a piece of horse or a 
well-cooked dog would be a positive luxury. While you are 
warming yourself by the cheerful blaze of the fire, hot coffee 
appears as if by magic — the very thing to brace up the sys- 
tem for dinner, which comes in about an hour. JNow, blessed 
be the man that invented coffee ! It goes down with such a 
relish after all the troubles of the day ; warming the throat, 
sending a thrill of delight into the stomach, filling body and 
soul with joy, and inspiring a proper appreciation of the chi- 
bouck and Djebel tobacco. All these delights we enjoyed at 
Zebdene, and very grateful and happy we felt that night, in 
spite of the prejudices of the untraveled against the use of 
stimulants. I shall long look back upon Zebdene as a bright 
spot in our pilgrimage through Syria. In the month of May 
it must be one of the most charming places imaginable. 

Having a spare hour next morning, while the mules were 
being loaded, we walked out to see the village by daylight, 
and were quite enchanted with the fresh and verdant hedges 
of wild rose, the rustic gateways (which seemed to be the 
ruling passion of the Zebdenes), the pomp of groves, the 
garniture of fields, and " all that the genial ray of morning 
gilds." On our return to the house the horses and mules 
were ready, and we rode off merrily toward Damascus. 
Clouds began to gather upon the mountains, as we passed 
out of the shaded avenues of the village into the open plain, 
and it was not long before a heavy rain swept down upon us, 
accompanied by a strong cold wind that was very piercing. 
Three hours from Zebdene we came to the river Berada, an- 
other small stream, running between high and precipitous 
rocks of very marked geological character. Parts of the 
mountain sides were distorted as if by violent convulsions of 
nature, and we observed in the rocks distinct marks of trees 
and impressions of leaves. Our guide pointed out to us the 
place where the river formerly gushed through the mountain 
on the left, after we had passed a bridge ; and on the right, 
on a high peak, the tomb of Abel. We had no data to au- 



252 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



thenticate the burial of Abel on the mountain, but it was the 
current opinion among the G-reek Christians that this was 
his tomb. On the left, beyond the bridge, we saw a number 
of holes cut in the rocks like doorways, in which the Jews in 
old times buried their dead. They are called the tombs of 
the Jews. Farther on we came to the village of Suharadan 
— a dirty gathering of dilapidated hovels ; and soon after, the 
village of El Sanean, situated on the slope of a hill. The 
valley on the left is well watered, and is fertile and beauti- 
fully wooded on the banks of the rivulet, having a fresh and 
verdant appearance, that contrasts pleasantly with the barren 
mountains on each side. El Sanean is made memorable to 
us by certain curious tombstones that we saw there, and by 
the vilest abuse that ever unoffending pilgrims received. An 
old woman, literally a living skeleton, covered with leather, 
followed us up all the way from the spring in the hollow, 
shaking her clenched hands at us, and shrieking at the top 
of her voice, " Dogs that you are — get away from here. Be- 
gone, filth of the earth !" Seeing that we merely laughed at 
this (partly for the reason that it was all in an unknown 
tongue, and partly because when translated it sounded so lu- 
dicrous to hear this skinny old hag denounce us as barbarians 
and dogs, without the slightest provocation, so much like what 
we were in the habit of doing toward the Arabs ourselves, 
and so palpable a hit at travelers in general), the old wretch 
actually danced with rage, flinging about her arms and work- 
ing her jaws like some galvanized mummy. Our dragoman 
was so overcome with laughter that it was some time before 
he could give us the gist of her remarks. " Oh, yes !" she 
shrieked, " you may laugh, you dogs — you don't know any 
better. You are nothing but dirt, scarce fit to be spit upon ! 
Begone from here, you grinning dogs, before I defile my hands 
by scratching your eyes out ! "What do you come poking 
about here for ? Why don't you stay at home, where you 
are all dogs together ? You want some bread, eh ? Ha ! 
ha ! that's good ?" And here the ferocious old hag laughed 
so horribly with her toothless jaws that we fain rode off to 
escape further abuse. * 



FROM BAALBEK TO DAMASCUS. 



253 



In an hour we came to the stream of Zeita, where we 
stopped to lunch. From this point on to the village of Dum- 
mar is a winding valley, highly fertile and picturesque, the 
road running along a ledge at the base of the mountain on 
the right, the river on the left, its banks covered with trees, 
and numerous springs gushing from the rocks and running 
over the road, making one of the most refreshing combinations 
of agreeable sights we had yet seen. At length we entered 
the village of Dum-mar, the most beautiful spot on the whole 
road from Baalbek to Damascus, not excepting our favorite 
Zebdene. We saw little of the houses, for they are nearly 
covered up with trees and running vines ; but the gardens, 
wild and uncultivated as they are, teemed with richness of 
vegetation ; and the ruinous old walls by the roadside were 
overrun with luxuriant vines and wild flowers. As we passed 
out of the village near the bridge we saw a large gathering 
of the native Arabs, lounging and smoking then* chiboucks 
under an immense wide-spreaking tree in front of a Khan, 
with groups of camels laden with merchandise from Damas- 
cus feeding in the shade, and at a short distance from the 
crowd an Arab story-teller, shouting, at the top of his voice, 
the famous history of Hassan, the Robber of Camels. The 
bridge crosses the River of Dum-mar, a considerable stream, 
watering a fertile tract of country above. Leaving the village 
* we had a pretty hard ride up to the top of the mountain 
called Jebel-el-Nazir. It was here we had the first view of 
the magnificent plains of Haroun — a sight that can never be 
forgotten ; one that is truly a joy forever. 



CHAPTER XXX. • 

DAMASCUS. 

In the midst of an extensive wooded valley lay the beauti- 
ful city of Damascus called by the Emperor Julian the true 
city of Jupiter, the eye of the whole East. "What can I say 
of the first view of Damascus, the bright glowing paradise 
of the Orient, the famous city of the Caliphate, that from 
early youth had haunted us in our brightest dreams of East- 
ern travel ! There it lay before us at ]ast, outspread at the 
base of Jebel-el-Nazir, upon the broad plain embosomed in 
groves of olives and cypress ; with its mosques and minarets 
and castles, its white domes and giant old gateways, rising 
from the mass of foliage, and glittering in the sunbeams like 
a fairy city of snow in a summer garden. It was enough to 
inspire even a practical man like myself, whose mission in 
the East is to rake up stern facts and expose all visionary 
fancies — enough, I say, to strike poetry into the unpoetical — 
even into a determined foe to romance. On this very spot, cr 
close by, it is said that a famous Sheik, whose tomb we saw 
as we passed down, exclaimed on beholding Damascus : " I 
will proceed no further ; I will die here, for if I go on I shall 
be unable to enjoy Paradise." And sure enough he died, for 
there stands his tomb. Like the first sight of Constantinople, 
it is gorgeously Oriental ; different indeed in position, but 
scarcely less beautiful. Surrounded by luxuriant groves, and 
embosomed in gardens, its white spires and domes stand out 
with wonderful distinctness and sumptuous profusion from 
amid the waving mass of green ; and afar on every side from 
the base of Jebel-el-JSTazir stretches the splendid valley of 
the Seven Kivers, variegated with green fields and woods and 



DAMASCUS. 



255 



villages ; while on the one hand gleam the bright waters 
of the River Burada and the Bahr-el-Merj, or Lake of the 
Meadow ; and on the other the snow-capt summit of Jebel- 
esh-Sheik, the ancient Hermon ; and dim ranges of mount- 
ains loom up from the plains of Hauran, and a purple glow 
from the setting sun hangs softly over the vast amphitheatre 
of mountain and valley, giving more than earthly beauty to a 
scene that seemed the baseless fabric of a vision. Such is 
the approach to Damascus, " the right hand of the cities of 
Syria." 

Here, before we pass beyond the Mausoleum of Abut-el 
Nazir, the guide of the Prophet, let us take a long, lingering 
look over the plain, and drink deep into our souls draughts of 
heavenly beauty ; for within the walls of Damascus, as with- 
in the city of the Sultan, all is " of earth, earthy." 

Descending by a narrow pass to the left of the Mausoleum 
of Abut-el-Nazir, we rode for about a mile along the base of 
the mountains, and then turned to the right into the groves 
of Damascus. Here reality at once gave a check to our en- 
thusiasm. All travellers bound to Damascus, in search of 
the beautiful, should take a good look at it from the summit 
of Jebel-el-Nazir, and die as soon as possible, like the Sheik, 
but not go a step farther. There is certainly nothing to die 
for within the walls of Damascus, though a good deal to pro- 
duce death, in the way of filth and disease. Instead of 
handsome villas, surrounded by flower gardens and adorned 
with works of art, as we were led to expect from the view 
above, we saw nothing but high mud walls, broken and di- 
lapidated gateways, and trees covered with dust ; with a few 
breaches in the walls by the way-side, exposing some wretch- 
ed huts within the inclosure, as dirty as mud and dust could 
make them. There was not the least attempt at ornament 
or comfort visible any where ; scarce sufficient cultivation to 
sustain life; lazy dogs and lazier Arabs lay basking in the 
sun by the roadside, sharing mutually the luxuries of dust 
and flies; and the whole aspect of the neighborhood, as we 
approached Damascus, was neglected and barbarous in the 
extreme. The narrow and mud-walled roads crossed each 



256 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



other in all directions ; dust covering them to the depth of 
six inches ; and the air was so filled with it that we were 
well nigh stifled before we entered upon the principal paved 
road leading into the city. At the gate called by the Franks 
the Porta di Baalbek, we were stopped by some Turkish 
guards, who entered into a social conversation with our drago- 
man concerning our business in Damascus, past history, and 
future prospects, all of which seemed to afford them the highest 
satisfaction, as they resumed their chiboucks, upon being paid 
the sum of two half-piasters, or four cents and a quarter, with 
an evident determination to re-main satisfied with the informa- 
tion they had received (and the half-piasters) all the rest of 
their lives, and never to stop smoking again on any account. 

If our disappointment was great upon entering the groves 
m the neighborhood of Damascus, it was greater still upon 
entering the city. The streets are not more than eight or 
ten feet in width, badly paved in parts and not paved at all 
generally ; dirty beyond description, and abounding in foul 
odors and disgusting sights of lepers and beggars. Overhead 
throughout most of the city were hung ragged mats for the 
purpose, I believe, of keeping out the air in summer, and 
making the streets wet and gloomy in winter. It was as 
much as our lives were worth to ride through these streets over 
the slippery stones ; spraining our horses' legs, and getting 
jammed on each side of the street every dozen steps, some- 
times carrying away the shutters of a shop or a basket of 
fruit, and now and then compelled to jerk up the off leg and 
hug the wall to avoid being crushed by a drove of camels. 
The loads of these animals seemed expressly designed to rake 
both .sides of the streets ; and where there was not room for 
them, mules and donkeys supplied their place. We had 
often heard of the hostility of the inhabitants of Damascus to 
Christians ; their hatred of all sects except their own, their 
intolerance toward foreigners, and their bigoted attachment 
to Islamism ; but we had been told that of late years they had 
greatly improved in consequence of increased intercourse with 
the Frank nations of Europe. Ibrahim Pasha taught them a 
good many lessons, without doing their religion or morals 



DAMASCUS. 



257 



much good. The British Government, in 1841, gave them 
some notion of the importance of good behavior, which seem- 
ed to make some impression upon them. They still vent 
their hatred, however, upon foreigners, as we found from oui 
experience, whenever they can do so without incurring risk. 
In passing through some of the more obscure streets we had 
stones thrown at us by the boys, and were repeatedly spit at 
by the children, and insulted by derisive shouts of Frangi ! 
Frangi ! The men stood by laughing, evidently quite pleased 
with the conduct of the rising generation, though it is due to 
them to say that they were too lazy or too cowardly to take 
any part in these annoyances themselves. After passing 
through several of the quarters in which the different sects 
reside, we arrived at a wall with a door in it, upon entering 
which we found ourselves in the Court of the Hotel de Pal- 
myre, the only tolerable place for Frank travelers in the city. 
From the streets the houses have the appearance of mud 
forts, most of them being bare mud walls with holes in 
them, presenting a most forbidding and gloomy aspect to the 
stranger, who is not aware of the pleasant surprise that is in 
store for him when he passes the obscure little doorway. 
We were quite charmed upon entering the Court of the Hotel 
de Palmyre. In truth, it seemed as if we had made a mis- 
take and stumbled into the palace of some Pasha. It was 
a very ordinary house, as we afterward found, but appeared 
really magnificent, after what we had been accustomed to. 
There were orange trees, laden with tempting fruit ; a large 
reservoir full of water, with a fountain in the centre ; a 
paved court and various archways, leading into the different 
apartments, all on the ground floor ; and then there were Arab 
and Greek servants, who were lounging about ; and the host, 
with a flaming red fez in his hand, received us as visitors of 
high distinction — all very gratifying things to way-worn travel- 
ers, who had been for eight days wandering about over the 
mountains of Lebanon. The air was fragrant with the scent 
of oranges and rose water — we suspected the host of hav- 
ing sprinkled the pavement or himself with attar of roses 
when he heard we were coming — fountains were bubbling 



258 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



away in the rooms and out of trie rooms ; in short, without 
going into particulars, the whole was quite Lalla Rookhish — 
that is to say. like all things Oriental, the first sight was full 
of enchantment. It was so strange and showy, every thing 
so fashioned out to captivate the senses ; the rooms extending 
clear up to the top of the house, with domes above ; the walls 
cornered and curved into all sorts of shapes, and painted with 
brilliant colors, in stripes and grotesque devices ; marble 
floors, alcoves for the beds, running gauze curtains drawn 
across, to keep off the spray of the fountains; divans to lounge 
and smoke upon, with a pleasant mingling of the useful in the 
way of narguillas and chiboucks. Oh, you have no idea how 
luxurious it was ! Such was the effect of these glowing feat- 
ures of Eastern life upon my nervous system, aided by two 
cups of excellent black tea from a box presented to the host, 
as he solemnly declared, by Mi-lord Bath, that I lost all sense 
of the dignity of Oriental travel in the enthusiasm of the occa- 
sion, and gave vent to my joy in such extraordinary nourishes 
on the flute as to arouse every smoking Arab and son of an 
Arab about the establishment. They pronounced it, as I 
solemnly aver on the responsibility of our dragoman, the 
most tahib music that ever was heard within the walls of 
Damascus, not excepting the famous dead march of the 
Turkish band, consisting of three notes, with variations. 
That beautiful air, called Ezepa Kouna by the Arabs, and so 
much admired by them whenever I played it, rolled magnifi- 
cently round the dome of our chamber, and reverberated with 
ten-fold effect throughout the court, to the great astonish- 
ment of two English gentlemen who had just returned from 
Palmyra, and who had probably never heard it before, or 
only knew it by the vulgar name of Zip Coon. My friends — 
the Captain and Southerner — were quite charmed, but none 
so delighted as I was myself "We all declared it was a 
glorious life, this riding, and smoking, and fluting our way 
through the land of turbans, and went to bed as jolly as pos- 
sible, to dream our first dream in Damascus. 

What we dreamt it would be impossible to say with any 
degree of accuracy. If I remember right, the English cap 



DAMASCUS 



259 



tain was troubled about getting in all his coal by 2 p. m., at 
which hour the steamer was to sail ; the Southerner slept 
soundly in a cane-brake ; and it fell to my lot to dream that 
the grand Caliph of Damascus had ordered me to be bastina- 
doed for misrepresenting him in the report of a speech which 
he had just delivered in the United States Senate, on the sub- 
ject of free-soil. At all events, whatever our troubles, were 
(and I assure you, our night-cajis had nothing to do with 
them), we all woke up next morning in a very serious frame 
of mind ; and, upon ascertaining that we had bad colds, and 
our beards were dripping wet, and our heads ached, we ar- 
rived at the following conclusions : That, however charming 
a fountain may be in a bedroom in summer, it is apt to be 
damp in the month of December ; that cold marble floors are 
more pleasant in August than in mid- winter; and the total 
absence of chimneys, stoves, and all means of warming a 
room, except a miserable pot of charcoal, is not productive 
of comfort, however pretty and Oriental the whole thing may 
be. All the glitter of colors on the walls looked very tawdry 
this morning ; the fountain sent a cold shudder through us ; 
the Arab domestics looked as lazy and filthy as ever, and in 
spite of the repeated assurances of our landlord, that " indeed 
Mi-lord Bath had slept in this very chamber," we changed 
our quarters for another room less showy but much more com- 
fortable. 

We took for our guide through the city a methodical old 
gentleman called Ibrahim. In his book of recommendations 
he is represented to be a " regular old Jew," " as honest a 
man as any body could expect," " not the brightest guide in 
the world, but the best in Damascus, and one who knows the 
way through the city;" and, in justice to him, I must say 
that he deserved these testimonials, and that his knowledge 
of the languages is equal to his knowledge of the antiquities 
of Damascus. 

The old gentleman (for he claimed to be a Reis) was very 
slow and dignified in his movements, and wore a long beard 
and large turban, that gave him a most imposing aspect ; we 
ualled him Ibrahim the Solemn. He showed us the bazaars, 



A CRUSADE IX THE EAST, 




AXCIEXT ARCH IX DAMASCUS. 

and told us, with great solemnity, that they were bazaars ; 
the mosques, too. he pointed out. and informed us that they 
were mosques ; some old walls, likewise, he showed us., and 
said they were walls : after which, satisfied that he had im- 
parted to us much valuable information, he took us to a native 
smoking-house. and with our permission, called for coffee and 
narguiilas for the whole party, which he paid for out of his 
own purse, charging us afterward only double the amount; 
according to a custom prevalent among guides ail over the 
world. 

I was greatly struck with the majestic and dignified ap- 
pearance of old Ibrahim : and thought he would look very 
much like a distinguished person, on paper. Indeed. I secretly 
entertained the belief that he was really some extraordinary 
man. in reduced circumstances : probably one of the learned 
Rabbi that I had read about in books on the East. My chief 
ground for the latter opinion was. that he seemed always to 
be wrapt in a profound study ; and had a great antipathy to 
any thing like learning in others. Nothing so excited Ihs con- 
tempt (if I might judge by the gravity of his countenance, for 



DAMASCUS. 



261 




IBRAHIM. 

he never manifested his excitement in any other way) as any 
allusion to the history of Damascus. In a happy moment of 
inspiration, I got an exact fac-simile of his features, which will 
enable the reader to see precisely how he looked upon being 
asked by one of the party, if he remembered at what date St. 
Paul preached from the house-top. On the subject of Roman 
antiquities he was especially reserved. It was evident that 
he had an antipathy to the Homans, and would in no degree 
contribute to the perpetuation of their fame. That he will 
come out one of these days in a book against that people for 
building useless walls and arches in Damascus, and thereby 
setting idle tourists all agog, about ruins that don't exist as 
well as those that do exist, I have no doubt whatever. I 
observed it in the expression of his countenance on several 
occasions when I solicited his opinion about Herod the Great. 

Actuated by the purest motives — chiefly by the desire to dis- 
sipate the mists of fancy, as you know has been my object all 
along — I took the liberty of asking Ibrahim if the ladies of 
Damascus were pretty ; to which he replied by throwing up 
both hands in horror, and saying, God forbid that I should 
know People say they are. but I don't know : never saw 



262 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



them in my life." 'Now, I gave Ibrahim credit for sincerity 
in a good many things ; for instance, being in earnest when 
he smoked the narguilla, hating the Mohammedans with a 
bitter hatred, loving the Armenians with a Jewish love, and 
in believing that there was not a more honest man than him- 
self in the city of Damascus ; but it must be admitted, that I 
had room for doubt on the point above stated. Strange sto- 
ries are told about some of the English nobility who have vis- 
ited Damascus of late ; and nobody knows more about them 
than our old friend, "except," as our maitre cThbtel was in 
the habit of saying on all occasions, " Mi-lord Bath." Here 
is the last, translated from the original Arabic : 

There was once in the East an elegant beast, and Beck- 
ford was his name ; a harem he took, and then wrote a book, 
which won him some little fame ; Corruption was tired, till 
an earl it inspired to follow in his path ; when soon to shame 
it put his name, then washed it in a Bath. — Moral : Because a 
nobleman is in Damascus, he needn't be a Damascus Blade. 

The following lines, from a book published in India, enti- 
tled, the " Shurboo Muit Amil," may be taken as another 
specimen of Oriental wit. The translation is from the mod- 
ern Arabic : 

ON A LITTLE MAN NAMED DAVID, WITH A VERY LONG BEARD. 

How can thy chin that burden bear ? 

Is it all gravity to shock? 
Is it to make the people stare, 

And be thyself a laughing-stock ? 

When I behold thy little feet, 

After thy beard obsequious run, 
I always fancy that I meet 

Some father followed by his son. 

A man like thee scarce e'er appeared j 

A beard like thine, where shall we find it 1 

Surely, thou cherishest thy beard, 
In hopes to hide thyself behind it. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 

We arrived at the Hotel de Palmyre, as already stated, 
after eight days' wandering over the mountains of Lebanon, 
and among the ruins of Baalbek, covered with the dust of 
travel and the filth and vermin of Turkish khans. The first 
consideration next morning was a Damascus bath. My En- 
glish friend had been in Syria before, and knew all about the 
native baths. He said they were ''stunning," a word signi- 
fying every thing wonderful, in an Englishman's mouth. 
" Stunning" baths are supposed to be baths that knock into 
a cocked hat all a man's preconceived ideas of the luxuries of 
bathing, and it is an expressive word, as I soon discovered. 
The tall Southerner preferred enjoying his nap, so we left him 
in his glory. An Arab youth accompanied us from the hotel, 
with special injunctions from the padrone to show us to the 
baths patronized by his late master, Lord Bath. I don't know 
how often his lordship went there, but it is to be hoped that 
he went often enough to be cleansed of the impurities of rather 
a prolonged sojourn in Damascus. We followed our guide 
through a confusing maze of narrow and dirty streets, till he 
disappeared in a most forbidding doorway ; and it was not 
until he re-appeared and had repeatedly urged us to enter, 
that we could consent to patronize such an unpromising place. 
He assured us, however, that we would find the baths tahib, 
mucha tahib — very good ; a great deal better, we hoped, than 
they looked from the outside. Passing through an open court- 
yard, in which were countless Arabs, half-naked, up to their 
elbows in dirty clothes and soap-suds, we entered a large cir- 
cular hall, the public dressing and undressing saloon, where 



264 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



payments were made, and coffee and chiboucks handed round, 
A fountain of cold water stood in the middle, into which dark 
unshirted men of the establishment plunged their arms and 
heads to cool themselves, and out of which they now and then 
dipped up water for thirsty customers. Around the saloop 
was an elevated platform, upon which stood a circular row 
of low bedsteads, most of which appeared to be occupied. It 
was a strange sight altogether ; on every side extraordinary 
apparitions of dusky bearded men rising up out of the sheets, 
wild-looking Arabs with bald heads running about screaming 
horribly, gray and grizzled old Turks falling on their faces 
toward Mecca ; a mist of cold steam rising from the sloppy 
marble floor ; and the whole space overhead filled with 
dangling clothes hung up on lines to dry in the reeking atmo- 
sphere. In a retired part of the room, behind a huge pile of 
smoking towels, sat the master of the establishment — a ven- 
erable Arab, with a beard reaching to his middle. He also 
was smoking calmly amid all the turmoil, and only stopped 
at long intervals to note down something on a pile of paper 
which he held on his lap. I believe that man was writing a 
book — probably a learned work on hydropathy, showing the 
absurdities of Preisnitz and his followers in chilling the blood 
with cold water, when they might comfortably boil it up to 
the proper temperature in hot water. To this venerable man 
of letters we made known our wants as best we could in a 
broken mixture of Italian and French, through our guide, who 
understood something over a dozen words of each, stating thf t 
we had come a long way, and hearing in Damascus of th i 
famous repute of his baths, had determined to try them. Th*3 
old man raised his head, looked at us solemnly for some time, 
as if he suspected that we might be tinctured with the her- 
esies of Preisnitz, and then waved his hand gravely toward a 
subordinate functionary who stood near. The subordinate 
was covered up high over the head in a pyramid of towels. 
" Friend," said we, " can't you show us into a private dress- 
ing room ? We Franks don't like to make models of ourselves 
in public." " Impossible," said he (through our guide, of 
course), " ever^ody undresses here." " But we are howadji 



BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 265 

of rank, and mustn't be confounded with common people ; 
besides, we are willing to pay double for a private room." 
" Oh, as to that," replied the man, very much affected by our 
allusion to backshish, " I knew you were mi-lords ; but I am 
very sorry indeed ; this is the custom in Damascus. We 
never have private rooms here." ''And do you expect us," 
said we sternly, " to strip ourselves before all those naked 
wretches?" "Praised be Allah," retorted the man, "we 
bathe none here but Reis and Pashas ! Don't you see his high- 
ness there ?" pointing to the apparition of a living skeleton, 
very dirty, sitting up in a pile of sheets, " that's a Pasha ; and 
his excellency on the left," directing our attention to a greasy, 
baid-headed old Turk, who was amusing himself picking the 
fleas off his shirt, " that's one of the chief officers of the gov- 
ernment ; and there, and there — all Pashas and men of dis- 
tinction. c< Enough," said we ; " strip us and boil us. Be 
quick about it, and see that we are well scrubbed." Mount- 
ing the platform, we selected two beds, and, with the assist- 
ance of the chief of sheet-holders, were soon reduced to bare 
legs and short linens. Further than that we stoutly protested 
against till screened from either a real or supposed gaze of 
wonder on the part of the multitude around us. who appeared 
to think that the Frangi might develop some new features in 
human anatomy. At last we made a compromise by denud- 
ing and sheeting ourselves. This done, we thrust our feet into 
some wooden clogs, to keep them clear of the floor, and were 
conducted into the first bath-room. Here was a blue mist, 
through which all that we could discern were shaven heads, 
naked and dusky figures looming through the warm soapy 
atmosphere, with a grim and horrible effect. There was a hot, 
heavy, oppressive smell, that quite disheartened one of us at 
least as to the prospect. I instinctively held my breath, for 
fear of inhaling some plague, leprosy, or other loathsome dis- 
ease peculiar to Oriental cities. While thinking seriously of 
darting out, paying the backshish, and considering the thing 
done, a gaunt figure emerged from the fog, and seized me with 
the grasp of a vice. He was the most frigh^ul looking mon- 
ster I ever beheld — a perfect living mummy; dark, lean, and 

M 



266 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



shriveled, with sharp-pointed yellow teeth, and only one eye., 
the other having been dug out with some rough instrument ; 
but that single eye was enough : it actually seemed to glare 
with triumph at the idea of a Christian subject. Another 
naked wretch seized hold of my friend the English captain, 
and Ave were both dragged rapidly into an adjoining apart- 
ment. 

I sincerely hope that the impression made upon my mind 
on entering this den of satanic visions will never be effaced 
by any future experience. It was quite sufficient to give me 
a general idea of the state of things to which a man may 
be reduced by an evil course of life. In truth, it was worthy 
to be ranked with Martin's illustrations of Milton. At one 
end was a seething caldron of hot water, in the shape of a 
dark marble vase, from which arose hot clouds of steam ; the 
marble floor w 7 as wet and soapy, and of a smarting heat ; the 
walls were reeking with a warm sweat ; high overhead was 
a concave ceiling, pierced with round holes, in which were 
colored glasses, and through this the light poured dow T n in 
streaks of every hue ; a mist of hot vapor hung in the atmo- 
sphere, lit up by flashes of colored light, and gave the moving 
figures an appearance of wretches roasting in flames of fire and 
brimstone ; and all around, in every direction, were bare bodies ? 
and limbs, and shaven heads glistening through the obscurity, 
and great naked monsters torturing them with dippers full 
of scalding water or blinding lather from huge basins of suds ; 
some scraping with razors a bald crown, some scalding down 
a leg or an arm, or rubbing off the skin from the backbone 
of a prostrate victim ; others stretching out limbs and trying 
to disjoint them, or scrubbing them down with hard brushes 
— all working with a fiendish zest, increased to a malicious 
£rin of triumph when a groan or involuntary yell of agony 
could be elicited. " Surely," said I to the captain, " they 
are not going to put us through here in this diabolical crowd?" 
" Oh, this is nothing," said he ; " there's another place yet. 
if I'm not mistaken. "We can go into that if you like, only 
it's a good deal hotter." " Hotter ! Why, good heavens ! 
there's not air enough here for a musquito." "Nonsense; 



BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 



267 



you'll not mind it directly ; it's quite stunning, I assure you, 
when you get used to it." Now, T had a painful misgiving 
of absolute suffocation in the act of getting used to it, but it 
was too late to retreat. At some magic word in Arabic from 
the captain, who was not much pleased himself with the as- 
semblage here, we were seized again by the naked monsters 
before mentioned, and dragged into a room still further on, 
and of much smaller dimensions. There were only two or 
three victims in this branch of the establishment. It seemed 
to be the finishing-up place, where people who chose to go 
through the whole operation were subjected to the final and 
most exquisite ordeals ; but we, as a matter of favor, were 
permitted to suit ourselves by having the whole thing con- 
centrated. The fact is, in the rooms through which we had 
passed there was such an odor of impure flesh that we were 
both a little haunted by visions of plague and leprosy. Here, 
however, we were past all odors ; there was no further use 
for the organs of scent. It was of such a fiery temperature 
that for a few minutes it was a sufficient labor to .struggle 
against suffocation. Soon the big drops of sweat rolled 
down from my forehead ; I was covered with a flow of steam 
and sweat that quite blinded me. The captain vanished 
in a white mist, leaving a parting impression on my mind of 
a man gasping for life in a sea of soap-suds. I saw no more 
of him for a quarter of an hour. Meantime I was jerked out 
of my winding sheet by the one-eyed monster, and thrust 
down into a sitting posture, close by the vase of hot water 
" Hold, for God's sake ! What — " It was too late. A per- 
fect deluge of foaming lather came pouring down over my 
head and face, running into my eyes, ears, and nostrils, and 
stopping up my mouth beyond all hope of speech. I have 
an indistinct recollection of a confusion of agonies through 
which I went for the next five minutes, but can not depict 
them with any thing like the force of reality. 

From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, I was 
enveloped in a bank of hot lather, which the horrid wretch 
who had me down was rubbing into my flesh with a small 
rake, or some other instrument of torture. At last he reached 




"BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 



BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 



269 



my eyes, and here he rubbed so effectually that the pain was 
too exquisite to be borne. " Water, water !" I loared, in the 
very extremity of agony, " water, you villain ! quick, or I'm 
blind for life ! " Mode" suggested the captain from his bank 
of suds on the other side, " call for mode, that's the Arabic , 
he'll understand it better than English!" "Mode!" 1 
screamed in the madness of anguish ; il Mode! you rascal !'' 
There was a guttural sound of assent from outside the coating 
of lather ; it was impossible to see an inch ; but I heard a 
dabbling as if in water, and thought I detected something 
like a fiendish inward laugh. Xext moment my brain seemed 
to be scorched with a hissing flame of fire, and my body felt 
as if a thousand devils were tearing strips of skin off it with 
red hot pincers. For a while I was entirely incapable of ut- 
terance. I could only writhe madly under the grasp of the 
live mummy, who held me down with one hand, while he 
continued to pour the scalding flood over me with the other, 
till a momentary cessation of the torture enabled me to call 
for aid. i£ Captain I oh heavens, captain ! he's boiling me in 
earnest !" " Cold water !" said the captain in Arabic ; "put 
some cold water on him !" There was a pause now, while 
the man went in search of cold water, during which I sat 
simmering in a puddle of suds, afraid to stir lest my entire 
suit of skin should drop off. In a few minutes he returned-, 
and, holding the bucket over my head, he poured down a 
stream of fresh water that sent a shock into my very core. It 
was a relief, however, as it eventually enabled me to open 
my eyes. When I did open them, the first object in view 
was that diabolical wretch, grinning horribly, and squinting 
with a malicious satisfaction at the results of his labors. I 
was red all over, a perfect boiled lobster in external appear- 
ance. " Tahib?" said he, signifying, Good, is'nt it ? l ' Ta- 
Mb, hey ?" And then he took from a large bowl of suds a 
familiar-looking instrument, a brush, which he fastened on 
his hand, and seizing hold of me by the arm, commenced 
rubbing with all his might. To be carded down in this 
manner with a hard brush, the wooden part of which now 
and then touched up some acute angle, was not productive 



270 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



of agreeable sensations, but it was a vast improvement oe 
the hot-water process. Such exquisite delight did the villain- 
ous old mummy take in it, that he strained every muscle with 
zeal, and snorted like a racer, his fiery eye glaring on me with 
a fiendish expression, and his long pointed teeth, glistening 
through the steam, as if nothing would have afforded him 
half so much satisfaction as to bite me. Stretching me on 
my back, he scrubbed away from head to foot, raking over 
the collar bones, ribs, and shin bones in a paroxysm of enthu- 
siasm. This done, he reversed the position, and raked his 
way back, lingering with great relish on every spinal eleva- 
tion, till he reached the back of my head, which event he 
signalized by bringing the end of the brush in sudden contact 
with it. He then pulled me up into a sitting posture again ; 
for by this time I was quite loose, and felt resigned to any 
thing, and drawing the brush skillfully over the beaten track, 
gathered up several rolls of fine skin, each of which he ex- 
hibited to me, with a grin of triumph, as a token of uncom- 
mon skill. " Tahib, Howadji? Tahib?''' Good; isn't 
your excellency cleverly done, eh ? 

Having arrived at this stage of the proceedings, the inde- 
fatigable monster again covered me up in a sea of lather, and 
while I was writhing in renewed agonies from streams of soap 
that kept running into my eyes, in spite of every effort to shut 
them off, he dashed a large dipper, full of hot water, over me, 
fo 1 lowing it by others in rapid succession, till, unable to endure 
the dreadful torturing, I sprang to my feet, seized the dipper, 
and shouted, <: backshish /" at the top of my voice. The word 
acted like magic. I never have known it to be applied in 
vain throughout the East. It opens sacred places, corrupts 
sacred characters, gives inspiration to the lazy, and new life 
to the desponding ; in short, it accomplishes wonders, no mat- 
ter how miraculous. From that moment I was a happy man ; 
rubbed dow T n with a lamb-like gentleness, smoothed over softly 
with warm sheets, dried up from head to feet ; turban ed like 
a Pasha, slipped into my clogs, and supported through the 
various chambers into the grand saloon, where I had the 
pleasure of greeting my friend the captain, of whom I had 



BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 



271 



enjoyed but a confused notion of proximity for some time pre- 
viously. An attendant now handed us chiboucks and coffee, 
which, together with the delightful sense of cleanliness and 
relief from all further suffering, produced a glow that was 
quite ecstatic. Covered up to our necks in warm sheets, we 
lay back, supported by pillows, sipped our coffee and smoked 
our chiboucks with a relish to which all the past pleasures of 
life seemed absolutely flat. A thorough feeling of forgiveness, 
a quiet sense of happiness, and an utter indifference to the 
world and all its cares, pervaded the entire inner man, while 
the outer was wrapt in that state of physical beatitude which 
the Koran promises to the devout followers of the Prophet in 
the seventh heaven. " Stunning, isn't it ?" said the captain, 
calmly purling his chibouck. 

Being Frangi, of course we backshished every body, and 
were immoderately cheated. The entire expense, however, 
did not exceed thirty cents, including coffee and pipes — little 
enough, one would say, for such an ordeal. As for the effect 
upon the system we found it very pleasant and salutary ; but 
I have no doubt the old gentleman whom we left writing be- 
hind the smoking pile of sheets will do full justice to that 
branch of the subject in his work, which, it is to be hoped, 
will be translated into English. There is only one objection 
to the boiling process ; my hair has been falling out ever since, 
and I am apprehensive of total baldness before any young lady 
will be moved to pity, by these " hair-breadth 'scapes," these 
"dangers by flood and field." The baths of Damascus are 
stunning ; I fully agree to that ; but it is with an inward 
reservation, a fixed intention to flog that old mummy out of 
his skin the very first time I meet him in Washington, 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



THE MISSIONARIES IN SYRIA. 



I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted, during my 
sojourn in Damascus, with several of the American mission- 
aries ; and I feel that it would be ungrateful to omit a pass- 
ing tribute to their kindness of heart, unpretending piety, and 
noble exertions in the dissemination of Christianity among the 
Arabs. Prejudiced, in some degree, against the missionaries 
as a class — partly from having paid but little attention to the 
subject, and partly because I had seen some very bad speci- 
mens in other countries, yet I had never doubted the high 
and praiseworthy aim of the system ; and it was a source of 
genuine gratification to find that there are a great many 
more sincere people in the world than I had supposed in my 
younger days. A good cause often suffers from the unfitness 
or insincerity of its followers ; but if it be founded upon true 
and righteous principles, it must triumph in the end. It has 
been well remarked, that "if men who are set apart to in- 
struct others, instead of entertaining them with what neither 
teachers nor hearers understand, and (what is worse), stirring 
. up the latter to dislike and hate one another for difference in 
opinions, would preach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, which 
is 1 peace on earth and good- will to men,' and also enforce this 
excellent doctrine by their own examples, and all other vir- 
tues by the same means, we should undoubtedly soon experi- 
ence a great alteration in the world." Nothing can be more 
injudicious than to attempt the reformation of a barbarous 
people by threats, or by confounding them with abstruse doc- 
trinal mysteries. The Christian religion is simple and easily 
understood ; the most ignorant may be taught to comprehend 



THE MISSIONARIES IN SYRIA. 



273 



it, if it be presented in the unpretending language of its bes1 
and greatest teacher. But in order to do this, it would seem 
necessary that the mind of the barbarian should be prepared 
in some measure to receive it by a knowledge of the princi 
pies upon which it is founded ; by some practical, tangible 
showing of the difference between right and wrong ; by such 
preparatory lessons in. civilization, as would enable him to 
perceive the temporal, as well as the spiritual advantage of 
what he was learning, 

The schools attached to the missions throughout the East 
are, in this view, of incalculable service to the cause of Chris- 
tianity ; and, although there is perhaps no other part of the 
world where so many difficulties have to be contended against, 
the success which has attended the missionary teachings is 
most remarkable. In Athens, Mr. Hill, by his judicious and 
admirable system of education, gradually inspiring in his 
pupils a love of virtue, and a thirst for spiritual knowledge, 
has made an impression on the hearts and minds of the rising 
generation of Greeks that must eventually spread and become 
general throughout the land. Evangelides, the Greek- Amer- 
ican of Syra, has also done much by his teachings ; and the 
same may be said of all the missionaries and teachers whorr 
I met with in the Levant. 

One of the most memorable and delightful evenings of my 
whole pilgrimage was spent in the church of the Rev. Dr. 
Smith of Beirut. There, for the first time in my life, I heard 
the Christian religion expounded in the land of its origin. 
Attracted, as I was strolling by the door of the humble little 
church, by the chaste and classic eloquence of the preacher, 
with whom I was entirely unacquainted, I stepped in and took 
my seat ; and I may safely say, that never had I listened to 
a more delightful or instructive discourse. Among the con- 
gregation was a large number of intelligent-looking Arabs, in 
their native costume ; and the profound attention with which 
they listened to the teachings of their pastor, and the strict 
decorum and good-breeding evinced in their manner, struck 
me as the most impressive instance of progress in a land oi 
darkness and ignorance, toward a better state of things, that 



274 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



I had ever witnessed. Who can measure the good that each 
one of these Arabs may, by his influence and example, do foi 
his fellow-men, even in his own day and generation ? 

Damascus has always been noted as the stronghold of 
Islamism ; and the inhabitants have ever been distinguished 
for their bigotry and intolerance. Until very recently, Chris- 
tian pilgrims were not only subject to insults in passing through 
the streets, but frequently assaulted and maltreated without 
provocation. A great improvement has become perceptible 
in this respect within a few years past. Missionaries from 
every civilized nation are now permitted to preach, and edu 
cate the native children without molestation ; and although 
the result of their labors is not so encouraging as in other 
portions of Syria where there is less intolerance, yet there is 
every reason to believe that the great cause of civilization is 
taking root, and that a few years more will develop a growth 
equal to the most sanguine anticipations of those who are in- 
terested in it. 

Mr. Burnet, who has been in Damascus only six or seven 
years, now preaches to a respectable congregation of Arabs in 
their own tongue. Dr. Shephard, Mr. Lansing, and others, 
are making rapid progress in the education of the Arab chil- 
dren ; and when the system which they have adopted is 
thoroughly in operation, there can be no question as to its 
beneficial results. 

To each and all of these gentlemen I am indebted for much 
valuable information in regard to the social condition of the 
Syrians ; and I shall always remember with unfeigned pleas- 
ure the delightful and profitable hours which I was so fortu- 
nate as to spend in their society. 

After seeing all that travelers, limited in time, can be ex- 
pected to see in Damascus and the neighborhood, we bade 
good-by to our kind friends, mounted our horses once more, 
and proceeded on our journey. 

For three days nothing particular occurred. A heavy rain- 
storm set in as we left Damascus ; and we were drenched to 
the skin, and compelled at last to seek shelter in a miserable 
village up in the mo mtains, called Far-how-ar. On the fo)« 



THE MISSIONARIES IN SYRIA. 



275 



lowing day, the rain turned to a cutting sleet, and we were 
forced to stop at Beit Jem. Taking the rough bridle-path 
from that village, we ascended Jebel-esh-Sheik, or Mt. Her- 
mon, where we suffered intensely from the cold. The mount- 
ain was covered with snow ; and the whole aspect of the 
country was wild and barren. We saw a few jackals among 
the rocks, anct shot at one that came snuffing the air rather 
close to us, but, with our usual luck, missed him. 

On the evening of the third day we descended near by an 
old castle, to the village of Baneas, the ancient Cesarea Phi- 
lippi. We saw here the grotto from which flows the spring 
said by some authorities to be the source of the Jordan. I 
had promised to meet Doctor Mendoza and the Madam at 
Philippi ; but they had passed on the day before, evidently 
because it was " imposs to remain tranquil" in such a place. 
I had also on various occasions during my life agreed to meet 
friends and foes in Philippi. The friends were not there : I 
was not disappointed in regard to the foes. We all had an 
abundance of them during the night, and in the morning 
had no cause to complain of having met nothing in Philippi. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE BATTLE OF THE MULETEERS. 

This morning, before leaving Baneas, a terrible battle took 
place between my dragoman Yusef and the muleteers. I 
caution the reader not to be alarmed for my safety, when I 
state, that on an average, we have a battle every day. Neither 
do I claim any great merit as a military man, on account of 
the coolness with which I witness the strife of the contending 
parties ; because, to be candid, I always contrive to occupy 
some elevated position at a safe distance from the scene of 
action, where I sit smoking my chibouck very pleasantly till 
the conclusion of the fight. Besides, I know that Yusef is 
bound to conquer, because he not only carries all the arms, 
but is perpetually so boiling over with courage, that even 
when there is no real enemy at hand, he shoots the air and 
kills a great many imaginary enemies. Under these circum- 
stances I feel a confidence in the result that is very cheering. 
The cause of the present difficulty was this, as well as I couk, 
learn : The muleteers having found some old acquaintancer 
at Baneas, had spent the night in smoking and talking. When 
the time arrived for starting they were in a sound sleep. 
Yusef tried, by all manner of pushing and shouting, to wake 
them up ; but the more he tried the more they remained fast 
asleep. The effect seemed rather to be agreeable than other- 
wise. At last, bereft of all patience, and aided by Francesco, 
he caught them by the legs and dragged them out of doors, 
where he eventually brought them to life, both by personal 
violence and a fierce torrent of abuse. " Now," said he, as I 
judged from his tone and manner, "if those mules are not 
ready in ten minutes, I'll flog every one of you ! I'll then cut 



THE BATTLE OF THE MULETEERS. 



277 



your throats from ear to ear. After that I'll tear out your 
livers, and give them to the dogs ; I'll make mince-meat of 
your hearts, and hang your bodies up by the heels, as a warn- 
ing to all muleteers throughout Syria. Yea, by the beard of 
the Prophet, if that won't do, I'll tie you to the tail of my 
horse and drag you to Jerusalem, and when I get you there 
I'll — no, I won't bury you in holy ground — I'll eat you ! By 
Allah, I'll eat you !" This last threat was evidently made on 
the spur of the moment ; it was too dreadful to be premedi- 
tated, and must have had its origin in the difficulty of getting 
rid of the bodies after dragging them to Jerusalem. I could 
not think that Yusef really meant to eat the muleteers ; for, 
leaving aside every moral consideration, they were the dirtiest 
set of vagabonds I ever saw, and must have been thoroughly 
saturated with smoke. However, they seemed to think a lit- 
tle more smoking would do them no harm ; for the moment, 
Yusef turned his back and went into the khan to pack up the 
cooking utensils, they very coolly filled their pipes and began 
to smoke again, conversing at the same time with great good- 
humor. At the expiration of half-an-hour, having waited 
patiently all this time, I ventured mildly to suggest that we 
ought to be on our way, or we would never be able to reach 
Tiberias. Upon this hint Yusef became suddenly fired with 
unconquerable indignation toward the muleteers. He rushed 
furiously out of the khan, the veins swollen in his forehead, 
and rage depicted in every feature. I followed at a reasona- 
ble distance, thinking there would certainly be bloodshed this 
time. " Where are they ?" he shrieked. " Show me the ras- 
cals ! Ho ! Yakob ! Hassin ! Mustapha !" " Here we are," 
said they ; and, behold, they were sitting in the same spot, 
smoking their chiboucks. " Dogs !" cried Yusef, drawing his 
pistol, " didn't I tell you I'd kill you if the mules were not 
ready in ten minutes ? Die, dogs, die !" But they had no 
idea of dying ; on the contrary, they rose to their feet, and 
began to expostulate with Yusef on the violence of his con- 
duct, which brought forth a counter expostulation from hirn, 
and a retort from them, and then a retort from him again, 
which brought up old scores,, and the battle raged fiercely in 



278 



A CRUSADE EN THE EAST. 



words for the space of half-an-hour. It became by that time 
perfectly furious. Yusef howled and shrieked, and spat at the 
muleteers ; and the muleteers howled and shrieked, by turn, 
and then smoked. The pistol evidently was a failure ; it was 
returned to its case. The battle of words now waxing fiercer, 
Yusef lost all patience. Drawing his sword, he flourished it 
thrice over his head, shut his eyes, and rushed blindly at the 
rebels ! But there was no sign of a panic ; they stood very 
calmly while he flourished his sword around their heads, as if 
they thought the cuts and thrusts that he made at them had 
no foundation in reality. Haying completely exhausted him- 
self by the effort, he eventually returned the sword to its scab- 
hard and sat down. One of the muleteers, Mustapha, was 
conspicuous for his docile temper. He was a comical old fel- 
low, always in a good humor, and ready to bear any amount 
of ill-treatment. Now, in cases of difficulty, Yusef always 
ended the matter by beating Mustapha. Already he had 
beaten him several times ; and in Damascus, apprehending 
trouble on the road from a growing disposition to mutiny on 
the part of the muleteers, he had provided himself with sev- 
eral tough sticks, to encourage discipline. In the present 
emergency, seeing Mustapha close at hand, he sprang to his 
feet, calling to Francesco to bring him his best stick, and 
seized the poor fellow by the coat. The stick came ; Mus- 
tapha begged ; Yusef stormed ; Mustapha promised ; Yusef 
foamed and spat upon him ; Mustapha howled most piteous- 
ly ; Yusef raged most furiously ; Mustapha called upon the 
Prophet to save him ; Yusef struck him for his impiety, in 
taking the name of the Prophet in vain. The more Mustapha 
begged and wept, the more Yusef beat him ; till, apprehen- 
sive of serious consequences, I called upon him sternly to de- 
sist, on the pain of our sublime displeasure. It was not with- 
out reluctance that the whipping was brought to a conclusion. 

At ten o'clock we were packed and mounted, and on our 
winding way just as if nothing had happened. Mustapha 
cracked pleasant jokes with every body, and laughed heartily 
behind Yusef s back at the idea of the beating and shooting, 
going through a great many pantomimic motions, showing 



THE BATTLE OF THE MULETEERS. 



279 



how people died when they were shot, and, when they were 
not shot, how they were beaten with a stick, and how they 
wept at the pain thereof. 

Meantime Yusef entertained us with some remarkable in- 
stances of his courage, touching incidentally upon the affair 
of the Djereed, in which he had killed four men and disa- 
bled six for life — the best men that could be produced by the 
great Prince of Lebanon. He also pointed out the precise 
spot where he had recently shot a dead man under the most 
singular and appalling circumstances. It seemed that in 
returning to Damascus, after leaving a party of travelers at 
Jerusalem, he had occasion to pass this way in the middle of 
the night, which was the time he usually chose for traveling 
when alone, as it increased the danger of robbers. He knew 
there were robbers waiting for him here, and in order to give 
them notice of his approach he was singing merrily as he 
rode along. All at once he saw a very tall man, as he 
thought, standing under an olive tree, with his face turned 
up, looking at the moon. " Ho, villain!" shouted our travel- 
er, i: is it me you want ? Fall down on your knees, wretch, 
and beg for mercy. Behold ! I am Yusef Badra, the destroyer 
of robbers!" The man instead of falling upon his knees 
seemed to grow taller as the destroyer of robbers approached 
4i Fool, that you are !" cried Yusef, riding up still closer and 
drawing his pistols ; " don't you know I never miss killing 
when I shoot." Still the man made no reply. " Then die! 
die like a dog!" Saying which Yusef fired six times, and 
each time he heard a ball strike. ' ; Oho !" said he, perceiving 
that the man only moved a little without falling down or 
uttering a single groan, "you are the devil; I'm very glad 
to see you, old gentleman ! Yusef Badra is not afraid of the 
devil, or any body else ; besides, we have a small account to 
settle." Upon which, drawing his sword, he urged his fright- 
ened horse up to the spot and ran the mysterious stranger 
clean through the body. It was not until then that he dis- 
covered his mistake. He had shot and pierced through the 
body a dead man ! The corpse was hung to a branch of the 
tree by the neck, and the feet, being in the shade, were invis- 



280 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



ible at a short distance. It was a poor traveler whom the 
robbers had murdered that night. Yusef cut the corpse down, 
as he informed us, and pinned upon it these words, which he 
wrote* upon a piece of paper by the light of the moon : "If 
ever Yusef Badra meets the wretches who murdered this 
man, he will cut their heads off and hang them by the heels 
to this tree." 

On the road leading down into the valley of El Huleh we 
crossed, near Baneas, the chief source of the Jordan. At this 
point it is nothing more than a good spring of clear water, 
enlarged to the size of a rivulet by contributions from several 
smaller springs. It comes from a large cave in the mount 
ain a little beyond Baneas. In an hour and a half, having 
descended a long slope over a bed of rocks, we reached an 
old bridge with three arches, which crosses a stream called 
by the natives the true source of the Jordan. It is a disput- 
ed point among biblical writers which of the two is in reality 
entitled to the name, the size being nearly equal ; but the 
best authorities seem to concur in giving the distinction to 
the stream nearest to Baneas. Before reaching the bridge 
we passed several fine olive groves, and had a distant view 
of the lake El Huleh, whose bright waters gleamed like a 
sheet of silver in the hollow of the great plain. 

From the bridge we struck out into a marsh, directing our 
course toward the base of Jebel Egil, the range of mountains 
on the right of El Huleh. "We soon found that the recent 
heavy rains had flooded all the low grounds, and our horses 
and mules were sometimes scarcely able to extricate them- 
selves from the mud. Our baggage was frequently thrown 
off the backs of the mules in their struggles, and recovered 
with great difficulty and delay. We saw waterfowl all 
around us, chiefly cranes, snipe, and such as are common in 
swampy grounds ; and by dint of a great deal of firing, at the 
expense of an immense quantity of powder and shot, acci- 
dentally killed two cranes that flew up suddenly within ten 
feet of our sportsmen. In the afternoon we saw for the first 
time a Bedouin village. It consisted of a dozen or fifteen 
low black tents, in the midst of the marsh, with a popula* 



THE BATTLE OF THE MULETEERS. 



281 



lion of lean and savage-looking Arabs, who looked scowl- 
ingly at us as we passed. Soon after, we passed another en- 
campment — an extensive village of tents and straw cabins. 
Horses were tied to stakes about the doors, and herds of buf- 
falo, with short thick horns twisted back, grazed in the sur- 
rounding marshes. Several ]ean and wolfish dogs ran fierce- 
ly at us, but fled howling as we presented our guns. These 
Bedouins are not the genuine descendants of Hagar, or the 
supposed wild Ishmaelites who still roam the deserts of Arabia. 
They are partially civilized by intermixture with the Syrian 
Arabs, and lead rather a pastoral than a predatory life. 
Those who abide in the valley of El Huleh pay tribute to the 
Turkish Government for the use of the land, and reside upon 
the plains permanently, moving their villages from one part 
to another as the sheiks direct. Large herds of tame buffalo 
find excellent pasturage here during the entire year, and 
upon the produce of these and the cultivation to some extent 
of the soil they contrive to obtain a tolerable subsistence. 
The land in some parts of the valley is exceedingly fertile, 
and seems well adapted to the production of Indian corn, of 
which the Bedouins raise a small quantity. Around the 
bases of the mountains, where the land is not too marshy, 
wheat thrives well by the mere scratching up of the ground 
with rude wooden plows (such as were used in scriptural 
times), and sufficient flour for the people of the valley is pro- 
duced with very little labor. Hice is grown in the marshy 
lands, and grass abounds naturally throughout the plain. In 
the vicinity of lake El Huleh tall rushes and flags grow in 
great quantities, which are found useful in building and roof- 
ing the huts. It seemed a little strange to us that these 
people should live in the low grounds, their tents and cabins 
floating in water half the time, exposed to the full glare of 
the sun in summer and the piercing winds in winter, while 
not more than a few hundred yards distant, on the sides of the 
mountains, were some very pretty sites for villages, pleasant- 
ly shaded by bushes, and protected from floods and storms. 
But there is no accounting for tastes, certainly no accounting 
for the tastes of the Bedouins. Some of the women and 



282 A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 

children were remarkable for the beauty of their features; 
the men had also fine features and a commanding air about 
them even in their rags ; but they were a swarthy, unwashed 
set of vagabonds at best, and lived in a style more suitable to 
a village of beavers than to any thing of the human kind. 

In the muter the greater part of the plain of El Huleh is 
covered with water ; all the small streams from the mount- 
ains swell the lake till it overflows its low banks and spreads 
around for many miles. The sources of the Jordan may be 
considered as flowing chiefly from the neighborhood of Ba- 
neas ; but every stream that runs into the lake of El Huleh 
forms in reality an additional source, as they all unite in the 
lake, and eventually find their way, through the Sea of Gal- 
ilee, into the main river Jordan, which winds from thence 
a distance of seventy miles into the Dead Sea. 

On leaving the Bedouin villages we rode on toward Ain- 
el-Malaha, or the Stream of the Mill. Our dragoman, who 
had maintained a profound silence for some hours, while in 
the vicinity of the Bedouins, now gave vent to one of those 
sudden paroxysms of fury which had frequently alarmed us 
with apprehensions of an attack from some hidden enemy. 
We were riding along very pleasantly, not dreaming of the 
least danger, when Yusef. without the slightest warning, 
dashed madly out of our ranks, yelling like the very demon 
of wrath, and whirling his gun fiercely over his head. The 
war-whoop of an American Indian could not compare at all 
with the battle-cry of our ferocious dragoman. Away he 
scoured over the plain, causing the earth to fly up from his 
horse's hoofs in a perfect shower, turning and rearing, charg- 
ing and chasing the enemy. Arrived at close quarters, he 
fired his gun; then drew his pistols and fired them, and then 
with a savage yell drew his sword, which he flourished with 
one hand, and his dagger, which he flourished with the other, 
and then he laid about him in front and behind, and on the 
left side and the right side, cleaving skulls, ripping, cutting, 
and thrusting, and charging over dead bodies, and shriek- 
ing madly for more live ones to come on. "Villains, cow- 
ards, dogs ! the whole of you together come on ! come on ! 



THE BATTLE OF THE MULETEERS. 

-Hid die by the avenging hand of Yusef Badra !" I declare, 
on the veracity of a traveler, it was the most desperate and 
exciting conflict I ever beheld. By the time I had ridden up to 
the assistance of our friend who was so bravely defending us, 
I could not perceive that there was a single live person left, and 
even the dead had disappeared. "Why, in the name of com- 
mon sense," said I, "what have you been shooting at and 
killing all this time ?" "Killing!" shouted Yusef fiercely, 
his eyes starting from their sockets, while he panted and 
foamed with rage; "'killing! I could kill forty thousand of 
them ! There never was a Bedouin yet that could stand be- 
fore me. I only wish I had some of the rascals here now!" 
"Keep cool, Yusef," said I, alarmed at the frightening de- 
monstrations he was making, "keep cool, it's much the best 
way." " Cool, sir ! By Allah, Til go back to the village this 
very moment and kill a dozeirof 'em for pastime. Do you 
think, prince of Generals ! that I'm afraid of a beggarly set 
of Bedouins !" " No, certainly not, Yusef," said I. soothingly. 
"Nevertheless," cried he, fired by another sudden burst of 
fury, " I must, by the beard of the Prophet I must, go back 
and kill a dozen of 'em, or I can't sleep to-night !" Saying 
which he clapped heels to his horse, and was about to dash 
off again, when 1 shouted, "Hold, Yusef. hold ! I insist that 
you leave those Bedouins alone, and don't attack them. Re- 
member what our defenseless condition would be during your 
absence !" " True, General, true ; I won't attack 'em to- 
night for your sake. I respect you, oh, glorious General ! 
commander of all the military forces in America ! I love 
you better than the brother of my heart ! This night you 
shall sleep soundly in Ain-el-Malaha." 

We rode on peacefully for some distance after this, and en- 
countered no other immediate danger than that of being 
walked over by several caravans of camels heavily laden 
with produce for the markets of Damascus, which we met 
in some of the narrow passes as we approached the Mill of 
Malaha. 

When there was nothing particular to occupy our attention 
in the way of ruins or scenery, it sometimes happened that 



^84 A CELTS ADE IN THE EAST. 

we became sleepy from the monotony of our journey, and lag 
ged along in pairs, conversing drowsily upon various topics 
suggested by the occasion. I was very fond of drawing Yusef 
out, when he was in the proper spirit, not only because he 
was well informed upon the every-day affairs of Syrian life ; 
but from a habit of argument into which I have fallen, in 
consequence of three years' experience as a reporter in the 
United States Senate. If I sometimes become a little dispos- 
ed to indulge in flights of eloquence, not strictly called for 
by any existing emergency, it is altogether through the force 
of example. 

The tall Southerner and the English Captain, having both 
fallen into a doze, while they jogged along about a mile be- 
hind, I took advantage of the occasion to indulge in one of my 
customary chats with Yusef, who seemed in an uncommonly 
good humor, considering that all the Bedouins were out of 
sight. But this conversation being of an important character, 
I must give a verbatim report of it in a separate chapter 




CHAPTER XXXIY. 

THE G-RAND SECRET OF HUM AX HAPPINESS. 

General. — " How is it, Yusef, that your countrymen never 
think of bettering their condition ? See that lazy wretch 
basking in the sun there ; why doesn't he go to work and do 




TAKING IT EASY. 

something useful ? I verily believe he smokes all day and 
sleeps all night." 

Yusef. — Ci And wherefore, General, should he trouble 
his head about any thing more ? The very philosophy oi 
life is to be content with as little as possible in this world." 

General. — " Then he must be a great philosopher, for he 



2S6 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST 



certainly has no visible means of support. It takes uncom- 
monly little to satisfy him, so far as I can see." 

Yusef. — " Yet that little appears to be enough. He takes 
it easy, as you may perceive, and doesn't seem at all un 
happy." 

General. — " Faugh ! what a barbarous life ! A fine look 
ing fellow like that fooling away his time basking in the sun 
like a great mud-turtle. Why, in our country he might earn 
his dollar a day." 

Yusef. — " True, General, but he'd have to work." 

General. — " Of course he would — ten hours a day, at 
least. Then you see he'd have the pleasure of spending his 
money. He'd pay a tolerably high price for a small cabin to 
live in ; and a tolerably high price for something to eat, and 
tolerably high prices for clothing for himself and family, and 
at the end of a week, after six days of honest toil, digging a 
well or down in a coal-pit, perhaps, he'd feel tolerably tired 
and sleep soundly till the morning of the seventh." 

Yusef. — " To my poor understanding, General, that 
seems rather a melancholy life — not a hopeful one at least. 
I can only say that touching the matter of labor, I am in the 
dark as to what it ends in." 

General (smiling). — "Why, it ends in labor, to be sure ; 
the man labors for money ; and when he gets it he labors 
either to keep it or spend it. But don't you perceive the dif- 
ference between a mere animal existence, and that noble am 
bition which inspires a civilized people to seek for active, 
positive, or palpable happiness — something they can hold in 
their hands and look at. In our country, there are men who 
go thousands of miles by land and water (some try to go in 
the air) to dig up gold in order that they may be happy 
When they get a hundred thousand dollars they only want 
another hundred thousand, and when they get that they only 
want half a million more, by which time they might be per- 
fectly happy only for some other want. Sometimes when 
they haven't any other want in particular, they lose all theii 
money by some visitation of providence — a fire or flood, or die 
of a fever just as they are going to be perfectly happy." 



THE GrEAND SECRET OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. 28^ 

Yusef. — "Adjaib! wonderful! And do they pray, too, 
as well as do all this ?" 

General. — " Why — yes: they contrive to spare one day 
out of seven ostensibly for that purpose ; some of them can't 
spare even that. While you barbarians spend most of your 
time in idleness, taking it easy, as the saying is ; stopping 
what little work you do at least five times a day to pray and 
smoke, no matter how important may be your business, we 
work hard early and late, and never stop our labors (especially 
if they be profitable) to pray at all, and very seldom to smoke, 
though we economize time by chewing a little. I never knew 
a man in our country to think so much of his soul or any 
body else's as to stop short in a bargain amounting to ten 
dollars, or even ten cents, for the purpose of communing with 
his Maker. We don't do it ; we haven't got the time ; can't 
spare it. Time is money, Yusef. Every day is a dollar, or 
five dollars, or ten dollars ; every minute is a cent or the 
fraction of a cent, more or less. 

Yusef. — " But, in the name of the Prophet, when you get 
all this money together, what do you do with, it ? Don't you 
ever stop working ?" 

General. — " Oh, yes : we retire from business sometimes ; 
purchase a country seat — build a handsome villa, and live 
there a month or two, by which time we become perfectly 
satisfied." 

Yusef. — " Then you take it easy, and smoke the pipe of 
content at last ?" 

General. — " Why, no — not exactly. W^e become perfectly 
satisfied that it's a dull business — that it won't pay : too slow, 
entirely too slow ; can't get through life fast enough doing 
nothing in the country. Go back to town. Speculate; make 
more money — or lose what we've got. The fact is, life is a 
bore at best; we know it; we get through it as fast as we 
can, in order to skim off what cream there may be in it, and 
enjoy it in a concentrated form ; we live a good deal in a 
short time." 

Yusef. — " But what becomes of all the money you make 
by living fast ?" 



288 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



General.--" Oh, we leave it to our children. We can't 
well spare the time to eat it or wear it on our backs, so when 
we die we bequeath it to our sons, who, being rather younger 
in the world, don't know its value, and spend it. They spend 
it tolerably fast sometimes, Yusef; they live very rapidly on 
it, indeed — railroad fashion, using a good deal of steam to 
help them along : they get over the track with considerable 
velocity ; you may depend upon it." 

Yusef. — " And then what do they do ?" 

General (with a yawn). — " Bust!" 

Yusef whistles with astonishment, but says nothing. 

General (finding Yusef so favorably disposed toward a 
peaceful and contented mode of life). — "I consider this an 
appropriate occasion, Yusef, to let you know T my utter abhor- 
rence of the system of flogging which you adopt in your man- 
agement of the muleteers. It is extremely repugnant to my 
feelings, and I beg you will* not repeat it hereafter." 

Yusef. — " Inshalla f they are nothing but brutes. It does 
'em good, sir. They couldn't get along without it. Fain 
would I do any thing to oblige your Excellency, but if I quit 
whipping them they would raise a mutiny directly." 

General. — " A most absurd argument — fit only for a bar- 
barous people. These muleteers are freemen, and not slaves. 
You have no moral right to whip them. If they were slaves 
it might be another question. What do you think would be 
the result if we Americans, a free-born people, were to seize 
up a free-born sailor or soldier and flog him like a slave ?" 

Yusef. — "Think, General? Doubtless I'd think he 
deserved it. Discipline, sir, must be kept up in all the rela- 
tions between master and man. If a man won't do his duty, 
he must be whipped into it ; that's the way I always serve 
these dogs." 

General. — " It wouldn't do for you to undertake such a 
barbarous thing in our country. Thank God ! we are a civ- 
ilized people. Public sentiment and the laws of the land 
would soon put down such tyranny. The captain of a whale- 
ship, or of any other ship, who flogs a man and accidentally 
kills him by too much flogging, is tried by the laws of the 



THE GRAND SECRET OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. 289 



land, and fined from five dollars up to fifty ! Think of that ! 
I have known naval officers to be tried by Court Martial for 
cruel and unusual punishments, and even reprimanded, in 
certain extreme cases where death resulted ; yes, Yusef, some- 
times actually informed in writing that they were to consider 
themselves severely censured T ; 

Yusef. — " To me, General, that seems to be a most un- 
wise and oppressive state of things. When I pay a man for 
his services haven't I a right to do what I please with him, 
body and soul ? If I hire him to work and he won't do it, 
haven't I a right to take satisfaction out of his hide ? If I 
take a dislike to him, haven't I a right to beat him upon any 
pretext whatever ?" 

General (excited). — " Great heavens ! Is it possible that 
even a brutish Arab can maintain such monstrous doctrines 
as these ? Do you know, miserable barbarian, that the very 
walls of our Capitol would cry out in execration of doctrines 
so absurd and inhuman ? Senators would rise in their places, 
and caU for the opinions of naval and military commanders ; 
Secretaries would hold official councils, and proclaim to Con- 
gress and the world their devotion to the interests of the 
service ; Lieutenants, Captains, and Generals would avow 
their abhorrence of cruelty in every form, and indignantly 
contend against sapping the foundation of our national de- 
fenses, by depriving them of an established privilege. jNTever 
let me hear you utter such abominable sentiments again, or, 
by all the rights of humanity, I'll put you in a book ! I'll do 
it, Yusef, as sure as fate ! Your name shall figure on the 
title-page !" 

Yusef (turning pale).—" In the name of Allah, beloved 
General, Light of my eyes and Friend of my heart, where- 
fore this extreme displeasure ? Surely, thou hast mistaken 
my meaning. I didn't intend to say that I'd make whipping 
a general thing ; that I'd whip any respectable person of my 
own class. My observations were designed to apply exclu- 
sively to low brutes of muleteers, without friends or influ' 
ence ; mere dregs of society, destitute of brains and feeling. 
Your Excellency does me gross injustice, if you thuik that. 

N 



290 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



because I would whip a muleteer for insolence or disorderly 
conduct, that I would, if placed in command of a ship, or at 
the head of a regiment, whip any of my officers for the same, 
or even a much greater offense." 

General (somewhat pacified). — " Of course not, Yusef ; 
certainly not. I never knew any commander, holding a 
position of high authority, either in America or England, to 
contend for such an indiscriminate exercise of power as that. 
It gratifies me to observe, that ignorant and debased as you 
^are, there are yet some enlightened principles of civilization 
not altogether unfamiliar to you." 

Yusef (warmly). — " Bless your generous heart, General ; 
I knew you'd do me justice ! I knew it by instinct ! What, 
* sir, flog an officer for getting drunk or insulting me ? No, sir. 
I'd take him aside and reprimand him ; I'd talk to him, like 

brother, with tears in my eyes, or challenge him to mortal 
combat." 

General. — " Such is the practice in all enlightened com 
munities ; and I must say, that with such principles, Yusef, 
you would be an ornament to any community, howevei 
skilled in the noble science of human destruction." 

Yusef (enthusiastically). — " A noble — a glorious — a won- 
derful science ! great and effulgent Chieftain ! brightest 
ornament of the City of Magnificent Distances ! not a night 
passes over the head of Yusef Badra that he doesn't wallow 
in rivers of blood ! His bed is a bed of human skulls ! his 
pillow is the cold and clammy corpse of a fellow man ! the 
sweetest breath he inhales is the putrid effluvia of the dead ! 
the grinning and fleshless jaws of his enemies are smiling 
flowers to his heart ; the ribs and joints that lie scattered 
around him are pleasant verdure to his eyes, refreshing them 
after the scorching heat of battle ; the wailing of the wid- 
owed for the dead, the moaning of the bereaved for lost 
friends and kindred, are dulcet sounds that thrill sweetly 
upon his ears ; all — all the vr'sions that can give hope and 
inspiration to the warlike soul, diffuse themselves through the 
soul of Yusef Badra. Yet he wakes to find himself without 
a foe ; his very soul thirsting for blood, he finds but a das- 



THE G£AND SECRET OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. 291 



tardly muleteer to chastise for theft or laziness ! Fain would 
he plunge his sword through the miserable dog ; tear out his 
bowels, and fling them to the crows ; but the baggage of the 
Howadji must go on ; it won't do to gut the wretches yet 
awhile. I'll gut them at the end of the journey ; by Eblis, 
sir, I'll do it in Jerusalem ! yea, General ! I can't*wait 
even so long as that ! I'll do it in Nazareth ! No, by heav- 
ens ! I can't wait till then. I'll gut 'em in Tiberias ! Two 
days from this date I'll — what ? wait two days ? Nay ; by 
all the glories of war ! I'll do it at Malaha — the very firsj; 
stopping-place we come to. I'll rip them open from head to* 
foot ! I'll cast their entrails out over the house-tops, to be 
devoured by birds and beasts of prey ! I'll drink their blood 
to cool the fever of courage and defiance that forever burns, 
within me ! I'll do it at Malaha ! nay, by all the horrid lux- 
uries of murder, I'll gut 'em now — this very moment — Ho ! 
Mustapha!' Yakob !" 

General (seizing Yusef 's horse by the bridle). — " Hold, 
Yusef, hold ! Are you mad ? In the name of humanity, don't 
commit such an outrage as that. Calm yourself, Yusef — calm 
yourself Now, I beg you, as a friend, not to shed the blood 
of innocent men. We may meet some robbers before long , 
and if we do, I promise you, on my honor, I shall not strike a 
blow ; I'll get behind you, and you may slay them all single- 
handed." 

■ Yusef (foaming).— " I'll do it, General; I'll do it. What? 
only single-handed ? Is that all the odds your Excellency in- 
tends to give them? Tie my hands, sir — tie my hands behind 
my back ! I'll fight the rascals without hands ! Come on. 
sir ! come on ! By heavens ! I think I see some now behind 
that rock ! So-ho-o, Sulemin, So-o-ho ; gently, my boy, 
gently— So-ho !" 

General (getting behind Yusef). — "Verily, I do believe 
they are robbers. Now, don't sacrifice yourself, Yusef! Be 
calm ; be deliberate. Take good aim when you shoot ; aim 
at their heads. Remember my life is in your keeping." 

Hitherto Yusef had evinced his excitement by turning very 
red in the face ; he now evinced it by turning very pale, on 



£92 A CUUSADE IN THE EAST. 

account of the intense character of the pleasure he experienced 
in catching a glimpse of two muffled figures, crouching behind 
a rock on the road-side. But, somehow, Syed Sulemin, usual 
ly so docile and obedient, began to cut an extraordinary num 
ber of flourishes, and actually refused to proceed a step further 
Salacfm, inspired by the capering of his rival, and supposing 
that it was preparatory to a race, dashed off without further 
notice, and in a few moments was close up to the rock. The 
figures rose ; there were four. They were not robbers ; they 
were only two Bedouin women, an old man, and a donkey, 
resting with a sack of wheat, on their way to the mill. 1 
had scarcely noted these facts, when Syed Sulemin came thun- 
dering up with Yusef, who had drawn his pistols, and was 
ready for slaughter. 

Yusef. — " "Where are the wretches ? Let me at 'em ! 
Pooh ! only two women ! only one old man ! only a miser- 
able ass ! Come on, sir ! come on, ! We'll find better game 
than that before long." 

General. — " I sincerely hope not. Certainly, if we again 
discover human game, I shall dismount from Saladin, and let 
him proceed alone. On the whole, I think we are rather 
fortunate in not finding robbers on this occasion/' 

Yusef. — " But the delight — the glory of the thing ! The 
exquisite satisfaction of shedding blood. On, Sulemin, on. 
By heavens ! if there's a robber within ten miles, we'll have 
him !" 

General (seizing Yusef 's bridle again). — " Now, I protest 
against this insane courage, Yusef ; this flying in the face of 
Providence. Take it easy — take it easy. The very philos- 
ophy of life is to be content with what you've got. If you 
have friends instead of enemies around you, it is the will of 
Allah. Smoke the pipe of content. Be assured, good and evil 
fortune enough will come in due time ; don't make yourself 
unhappy by bad dreams and sanguinary hopes. Bask in the 
sunshine of peace, while it lasts; cease that constant chafing 
for human blood. Sleep while you can sleep, and smoke while 
you can smoke. Depend upon it, there is no happiness in 
steaming it through the world this way ; living at a railroad 



THE GRAND SECRET OE HUMAN HAPPINESS. 293 



speed ; wearing yourself out with internal fires ; besides run- 
ning the danger of bursting up, by destroying the escape-pipe 
of your courage. Take it easy, Yusef — that's the true philos- 
ophy of life." 

Yusef (a little confused). — " But what is ease ? A sitting 
hen takes it easy ; it's her business — she likes it ; she has a 
natural propensity for sitting. A mud- turtle basks in the 
sun ; it suits him ; he feels comfortable ; he doesn't like run- 
ning ; his legs are too short. A snail travels slowly ; he's a 
slow coach ; he takes it easy, because he can't take it fast ; 
he carries his house on his back, and it makes no difference 
where he goes or how long it takes him ; he's always at home. 
But, do you think, General, that I, Yusef Badra, renowned 
in history and in song throughout Syria, could take it easy if 
I were alone upon a desert, with six armed Bedouins bearing 
down upon me ?" 

General (thoughtfully). — "Why, no, Yusef — I don't see 
that you could well take it easy under those circumstances. 
In fact I rather think you'd take it fast. I'm tolerably cer- 
tain that I would where the odds were so great against me. 
This is an extreme case, however." 

Yusef (proudly). — " That's the beauty of it — there's where 
the principle lies. I couldn't stand it, you see. If there 
was only one Bedouin, I might sit still, and let him strike 
me the first blow, for pastime ; but six ! — six to one ! No, 
sir, I couldn't take it easy in the common sense — I'd have 
to kill 'em ; rip 'em up, gut 'em, scatter their brains on the 
four winds of heaven : Every man takes his ease in a dif- 
ferent way, according to his capacity, inclination, or courage. 
The coward takes his ease in peace ; the brave man in war. 
My ease lies in blood — human blood, sir. When I wallow 
in it, I feel comfortable and happy — I'm perfectly easy then, 
only I want more — that's the only difficulty ; I always want 
more ; if it wasn't for that I'd be the happiest man living." 

General. — " Certainly a very unfortunate propensity, as 
regards its operation upon the rest of mankind. Happily, we 
are differently organized, as you say ; for if we all took our 
ease in killing, the world would be pretty easy before lon£.'' 



294 



A CliUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Yusef. — " That's the beauty of it — the very principle of 
existence ! A Turk takes his ease in smoke ; a Frenchman 
in dancing ; a German in beer, talk, and pipes ; an English- 
man in beefsteak ; an American — pardon me, General, I 
mean no disrespect in referring to your own words — an 
American in being uneasy. When he is uneasy he is easy, 
and when he is easy he is uneasy." 

General (puzzled). — " Really. Yusef, I hardly know which 
side of the question you have placed me upon now. We 
seem to agree, and yet we don't agree — no — we differ and — 
I don't know ! that's not right. One of us must be wrong 
— there's a mistake somewhere." 

Yusef. — " Your Excellency is wrong." 

General. — " Upon my word, it seems so ; though I'm 
certain I started right. The fact is, Yusef, we must come to 
a compromise, and allow that there's right and wrong on 
both sides. All nations have their merits and their faults ; 
there is good every where, if mankind would only profit by 
it. Extremes of laziness, or of restless ambition, are alike 
inimical to happiness. The whole universe is founded upon 
compromise ; the harmonies of nature are compromises. 
Every tree and flower that springs from the earth yields its 
verdure or its fragrance by compromise with the elements. 
Life is a compromise ; society, government, nations— all are 
compromises ; and they who base their conduct upon an ad- 
herence to the lessons taught by the harmonies of nature, are 
most apt to enjoy what we call happiness in this world." 

Yusef (enthusiastically). — " Most sublime and beloved 
General ! Verily, that last touch of eloquence hath aroused 
my inmost soul ! I am intensely enlightened and inspired by 
this discourse ! By all the compromises ! by all the haimo- 
nies of existence, I swear that this moment I could slay 
Hassin the Dragon-killer. I could devour the seven-headed 
Dragon, and wallow in the blood of Kabadab, the four-handed 
Giant ! Nay, by all the ghosts of the gory dead — " 

General (alarmed). — " Be calm, Yusef! be calm.- Com- 
pose yourself! It was not my intention, in speaking thus, 
to arouse you in that frightful manner. Suppress those 



THE GRANE SECRE1 OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. 295 



dreadful thoughts, I beseech you, and tell me what object 
that is in the distance. There ! don't you see something like 
a stone box ?" 

Yusef. — " I do, most certainly. That, your excellency, is 
not a stone box, but a mill — the famous Mill of Malaha — 
where this night you shall sleep soundly, or my name's not 
Badra, the Destroyer of Robbers !" 

From all I had heard respecting the accommodations of 
the mill, I naturally supposed that it was an extensive estab- 
lishment kept by some wealthy miller, who, for the purpose 
of enjoying society in this remote region, had built an addition 
to it, where he entertained travelers of distinction, and per- 
haps furnished them with choice bread and wine of his own 
manufacture. I need not say that I was a little disappointed 
when we rode up and took a general survey of the premises. 
But as this again is an important matter, involving adven- 
tures of a very birring character. I must reserve it for another 
chapter 



I 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



THE MILL OF MALAHA. 



I wish it to be distinctly understood that I entertain no 
vindictive or revengeful feelings toward any body on account 
of the disappointment I experienced in the first view of the 
Mill of Malaha. To be candid, it arose partly from a cred- 
ulous faith in every thing that the Arabs told me, however 
wonderful, and partly from a natural disposition to invest 
every thing with the charms of romance. Notwithstanding 
the practical sense of my companions, who believed nothing 
at all that was not in print, and who were continually pro- 
ducing authorities on every doubtful point, I secretly swal- 
lowed every thing miraculous, and filled up all the obscure 
parts with glowing anticipations, that were doomed never to 
be realized. Even at the time, I often suspected that such 
things were only to be found in the Arabian Nights ; but 
somehow I could not help thinking they might turn out to 
be true, and on that hope hung an immense amount of an- 
ticipation. Bearing in mind, however, that my mission was 
of a practical character, I was always ready to admit the 
facts in the end, and to denounce the Arabs for their extrav- 
agant indulgence in hyperbole, as also to expose the fallacies 
of all travelers who make a practice of investing common- 
place realities with the glowing absurdities of fiction. It 
may be set down as a rule that when a writer on Oriental 
life tells you what a pleasant thing it is not to be civilized ; 
when he even professes to have some savage propensities in 
his nature, and has an unconquerable desire to be a wander- 
ing Ishmaelite, there must be something wrong in the man. 
Either he is making a book to be read by a public that con- 
tinually thirsts for something strange and new, or wishes 



THE MILL OF MALAHA. 



297 



himself to appear in the light of a dark-minded, restless, un- 
happy man, so high above all the conventionalities of society, 
that to be a savage is the only condition really worthy of 
him ; or. worse than all. there is so little of the genial and 
kind in his nature that he finds few to love him at home, 
finds fault with others for what he owes to himself, and be- 
comes smitten with a morbid contempt for civilization. It 
reads very prettily, all this — especially if it be cleverly done. 
But let me tell you, my friends, there is a dreary, common- 
place, comfortless reality about Arab life, with all its bar- 
barous romance ; a beggarly vagabondism that is entirely 
unworthy of being aspired to by any person of good principles 
or common sense ; a bestiality that must make any one who 
has a respectable home turn to it with a grateful heart and 
an inward thankfulness that he was born in a tolerably de- 
cent country, and among a people, who, with all their affecta- 
tions and absurdities, are yet something better than savages. 

And now for the Mill. Behold it. as we wind down the 
rugged pathway toward the stream of Mai ah a — a little 
square stone building, half in ruins, with a flat top, perched 
over the water among the rocks, a camel browsing on the 
bushes near it, and a dozen lazy Arabs squatted down by 
the door smoking their chiboucks. That single glance was 
enough. Every thought of the hospitable old gentleman and 
his accomplished daughters ; the flower- gardens, the choice 
home-made bread and sparkling wines of Lebanon, vanished 
in a moment. I said nothing : but rode quietly up to the 
door, where, with a 'misgiving of the sequel, I resigned my 
horse to the muleteers, and saw him, together with the horses 
of my companions, led off to a cave in the neighboring mount- 
ains. A very animated conversation now took place be- 
tween our dragoman and the Arabs. The chief talker, a 
rugged ill-favored man, whose dark leathern skin looked 
darker still from the fact that his beard and eyebrows were 
covered with meal, was no other than the old miller himself, 
and the others were Bedouins who had come over from an 
encampment on the opposite side of the stream. As well as 
I could catch the drift of the conversation from Yusef 's man 

N* 



298 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



ner and gestures, which I had now learned to interpret with 
considerable accuracy, it appeared to be this : that we, a trav- 
eling party, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief of all the 
military forces in America, a royal prince, son of the King 
of the United States, and an English Lord, whose palace at 
home was built of pure gold, wanted lodging for the night 
in the far-famed Mill of Malaha, of which we had read 
in ancient and modern history, and whose proprietor we had 
always regarded as the sublimest miller that ever the world 
had produced. On the other hand, it was urged by the mil- 
ler that he was a devout Mussulman, and would never con- 
sent to having his mill defiled by the presence of a party of 
infidels, who were at best not fit to kiss the smallest toe of 
the great Prophet ; that should he suffer us to sleep there, he 
would never more have a particle of luck, and ten chances 
to one the grindstones would fly in his face and kill him stone 
dead, or the mill itself would tumble down upon him after we 
had left, and make minced meat of himself and all his fam- 
ily. To which, as I took it, Yusef replied that, praised be 
Allah, we were convinced of the errors of our ways, and were 
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where there was no earthly 
doubt we would join the standard of the Prophet in less than 
a month ; and that, besides, being royal personages of bound- 
less wealth, we would cheerfully pay as high as three pias- 
ters each (twelve and a half cents) for the accommodation of 
his establishment, together with a liberal backshish in the 
morning. In reply to which, the miller, with glistening eyes, 
stated that he w T as not that narrow-minded sort of person who 
could from any religious prejudices be guilty of so inhospit- 
able an act as to turn from his doors a party of distinguished 
Howadji ; that he always regarded the Americans and En- 
glish as the most liberal and enlightened people in the world, 
next to the Arabs, and upon the assurance of five piasters each 
and such backshish as we deemed consistent with our rank 
and dignity, he would cheerfully consent to having the mill 
honored with our presence. Keeping in view his own inter- 
ests, Yusef made answer to this by saying that he, being our 
"^.prasible agent in all pecuniary matters, deemed it incum- 



THE MILL OF MALAHA. 



299 



bent upon hirr. as a man of honor, known throughout Syria, 
and even to the remotest corners of England and America, as 
a dragoman, who never lied or took advantage of the liberality 
of his employers, to pay just and reasonable prices for every 
thing, and that he could not reconcile it to a sense of duty to 
pay more than four piasters ; but that he had not the slight- 
est doubt that the backshish would amount to treble that 
sum. At this the miller shook his head dismally, grunted a 
few words of doubt, which I interpreted to signify that he 
had become rather accustomed to promises of that kind; then 
puffed his chibouck awhile, and ended by waving his hand 
for us to enter. By this time it had begun to rain, and we 
were glad enough to find shelter. 

If the external appearance of the mill was disheartening, 
the interior was absolutely dramatic and inspiring. Stables I 
had slept in; caves, haystacks, trees, and the broad canopy 
of heaven had afforded me lodgings in cases of emergency ; 
but I had seen nothing half so strange or curious in the way 
of accommodations for a night's rest as the mill of Malaha. 
It was just high enough to stand up in where the arches that 
supported the roof ran up to a point ; but these arches being 
very rough and irregular, and the ground, consisting chiefly 
of holes, it was necessary to crawl into the dark recesses on 
our hands and feet. The water made a tremendous rush un- 
derneath ; and, looking through the broken parts of the floor, 
there was every prospect of tumbling through during the 
night, and being carried down among the wheels, and after- 
ward deposited in the lake of El Huleh. Following Yusef, 
who carried a dim lamp in his hand, we narrowly escaped 
being ground to pieces by two grindstones, which flew round 
continually at a tremendous rate, without any covering over 
them ; and in the course of time having worked our way over 
several holes and through a good many puddles of foul water, 
we found ourselves on a sort of elevation about a foot high, 
close by the grindstones again, where we learned that we were 
to spend the night. The dust and chaff, together with the 
intense darkness notwithstanding the lamp, and a thick 
cloud of smoke from a crowd of Arabs, hid away somewhere 



300 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



in the obscurity, afforded me reasonable grounds for thinking 
that if any one of us ever lived to see daylight again, it would 
only be through the intervention of Providence : certainly 
there was nothing here to encourage such a hope. 

The ground being somewhat soft, I had the curiosity to feel 
it, and then take up a handful and smell it ; by which means 
I became sensible of the fact that it consisted of a very rich 
deposit of manure. However, having a couple of mattresses, 
we spread them over it, and found that it made a very warm 
bed, although it must be admitted that the points of rock 
which came through it did not produce an agreeable sensation 
when they came in contact with our ribs. 

"A stunning place, this," said the English captain, good- 
humoredly. "Upon my word, I think we'll have a jolly 
time of it to-night." 

"Yes; very jolly: the fleas are getting lively already," 
©aid the tall Southerner, scratching himself fiercely. 

"Coffee!" said I; "coffee, Yusef. Gentlemen, I hold it 
as a principle that coffee is an elixir for all the ills that flesh 
is heir to, provided it be sweetened with the sugar of — " 

" Lead," suggested the captain. 

" No, sir ; the sugar of content. Coffee expands the soul, 
warms the imagination ; sends a cheerful glow throughout 
the entire man after the toils of travel, and acts as nature's 
balmy restorer, when sleep is banished by fortuitous circum- 
stances, or by- — " 

" Fleas," said the captain, suddenly starting, as if stung by 
a wasp. " What an abominable nuisance they are ! I'll 
venture to assert that they are as large here as humble-bees. 
Never felt any thing like them in my life ! Stunning, quite 
stunning, I assure you !" 

There was no doubt of it. I began to feel them myself, 
though I had always boasted of being proof against such petty 
annoyances. They actually began to pierce like a thousand 
needles. Sometimes they pierced like cambric needles, and 
sometimes like large sail-needles ; and very often they pierced 
like all the needles that ever were manufactured, put together 
in assorted bunches. While Yusef and Francisco were absent 



THE MILL OF MALAHA 



boiling the coffee outside of the mill, and getting supper ready, 
we entertained ourselves scratching a trio, and jumping now 
and then nearly out of our skins in the most desperate efforts 
to shake off the vermin. 

Presently supper appeared ; and, I say it in justice to our 
dragoman, a most excellent supper it was. He was a capital 
cook and caterer, and fed us like princes, as he always repre- 
sented us to be. The Arabs crept around us out of holes in 
the walls and dark corners, and while we ate they looked on 
with greedy and longing eyes, and said a great deal on the 
subject which we could not comprehend. They seemed very 
lean and hungry, and talked rapidly as each mouthful disap- 
peared. It was evident that they built some hopes upon 
coming in at the end of the feast. We told Yusef to give 
them something to eat, which he did; when, feeling very 
happy and comfortable, we had our chiboucks lit, and smoked 
our Latakia tobacco in great state, as became persons of royal 
dignity. 

I gradually dropped off into a doze, a mere doze, for I scorn 
the charge of having slept a wink that night. The grating 
of the grindstones, the everlasting clatter of tongues, the dust, 
chaff, smoke, and fleas, to say nothing of the roar of the wa- 
ter down below, were enough to banish all hope of sleep ; I 
merely closed my eyes to try how ridiculous it would feel. 
How long they remained closed I scarcely know ; it was not 
long, however, for I soon heard a heavy breathing close by 
my head, and felt the warm breath of some monster on my 
face. I knew it to be no Arab ; it blew and snuffed alto- 
gether unlike any thing of the human kind. Thinking it 
might be all fancy, I cautiously put out my hand in the dark 
(Yusef having carried the lamp away), and began to feel 
around me. For some moments I could discover nothing, 
but in waving my hand around I at length touched something 
— something that sent the blood flying back to my heart a 
eood deal quicker than it ever flew before. To tell the hon- 
est truth, I never was so startled in all the previous advent- 
ures of my life. The substance that I put my hand on was 
bare and warm; it was- wet also and slimy, and had large 



302 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



nostrils with which it seemed to be in the act of smelling me 
previous to the act of mastication. With the quickness of 
lightning I jerked up my hand, and felt it glide along a skin 
covered with long rough hair ; the next instant my ears were 
stunned by the most dreadful noises, which resembled, as 1 
thought in the horror of the moment, the roaring of a full- 
grown lion. But it was not the roaring of a lion ; it was 
only the braying of an ass. The monster was a Syrian ass. 
There were two of them, and they both began to bray ; they 
brayed in concert ; and I declare in all sincerity, it was the 
most intolerable concert I ever heard. Had it been a lion, the 
consequences might have been serious to the whole party, as 
well as to the animal himself, for I should certainly have 
called upon Yusef to bring out his pistols and guns, in which 
event there is not the least doubt that some of us would have 
fallen victims to the conflicting wrath of the rival lions. 

Oh, Lamartine ! Alphonse de Lamartine ! if thou couldst 
have witnessed our sufferings on that occasion, I'm certain 
thy tender eyes would have shed floods of briny tears ! In 
thy weeping Pilgrimage thou didst weep for the past, the 
present, and the future : for the great and the little ; for the 
happy and the wretched : for the birds of the air and the 
beasts of the field ; for the great leviathan of the deep and 
the smallest creeping thing earthly. Thou didst weep when 
thou wert happy and when thou wert sad ; when thy heart 
was full and thy tongue refused its office ; and when thy 
tongue spake and thy heart in turn was sealed with sorrow : 
thou didst weep that the land was stricken with ruin, and 
thou didst weep that the ruin was sublime — that thou wert 
gifted with the power to weep, and that there was cause to 
weep — that mankind was wicked and Alphonse de Lamartine 
the only living mourner in the land of desolation ; that the 
little wren was happy and the Great Philosopher miserable ; 
that the Great Philosopher was a Poet, and the little wren 
neither a poet nor a philosopher but a simple wren. Thou 
didst weep from the beginning unto the end of thy Pilgrimage ; 
thaw wert born with tears in thine eyes, and thou hast shed 
them copiously unto the present day ; wherever thou hast 



304 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



roamed, thy footsteps are marked in tear-drops ; thy whole 
life has been a constant overflow of tears ; thy lachrymal 
ducts have never yet been dry, and never will, until the tear- 
bags within are withered up in. dust; nay, even then thou 
wilt start new floods from that feeling heart, and weep that 
the world hath lost a Poet and a Philosopher. Wherefore, I 
— a simple General in the Bobtail Militia, following in thy 
footsteps on a Crusade against the Mists of Fancy — do venture 
to assert that hadst thou seen us in this old mill, beset by 
fleas, donkeys, and filthy Arabs, thou wouldst have opened 
thy flood-gates of sympathy and refreshed us with balmy sighs 
and copious showers of gentle tears. 

Now, as long as our grievances were confined to vermin, 
dirt, and noisy Arabs, v/e bore them very cheerfully, and 
even admitted that little afflictions of that kind add materi- 
ally to the spice of travel ; but when it came to making asses 
of us by placing us on a par with such animals, it was alto- 
gether too much to be borne. I had often heard that travel- 
ing makes one acquainted with strange bed-fellows, but in all 
my previous experience I had never been subjected to the mor- 
tification of sleeping in the same bed with two genuine asses. 

" What," said I, fired with honest indignation, " are we to 
stand this ? Breathes there a man with soul so dead that 
he'll voluntarily sleep with a pair of vile asses ?" 

"Ho, Yusef!" cried the Captain, "we'll be ass-assinated 
if you don't turn these abominable beasts out. We are in 
danger of being devoured bodily." 

Yusef declared that he was very sorry, but it was a Moham- 
medan custom to show great tenderness and respect to ani- 
mals of the brute kind ; he would ask the miller to put the 
asses out, but could not insist upon it as a matter of right 
Another exciting conversation now took place in which all 
the Arabs participated. Yusef stormed, threatened, and 
swore ; the old miller protested, remonstrated, and finally de- 
clared that he could not be guilty of any thing so inhuman ; 
that he would sooner drive out of his house on a rainy night 
the brother of his affections than the asses of his heart ; so, to 
make peace, the asses of his heart were suffered to remain. 



THE MILL OF MALAHA. 



•60b 



I will not undertake to describe how we spent the rest of 
that memorable night : how the grindstones came within an 
inch of grinding us to death every time we stretched our legs 
out ; how in attempting to escape from the furious attacks of 
the fleas we got ourselves involved under the hoofs of the 
asses ; how the old miller stopped smoking about midnight^ 
and by the united assistance of all his Arabs succeeded in the 
course of two hours in getting his mill stopped ; how every 
one of them talked all the rest of the night, arid went to sleep 
about daylight ; and how we got up at the same time and 
made a vow never again to stop at the Mill of Malaha. 

At sunrise we were mounted, and on our way toward the 
Sea of Galilee. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE REBEL SHEIK. 

Our road this morning lay along the base of Jebel Egil, 
on the right side of the valley El Huleh, as we faced toward 
Tiberias. We met several caravans of camels and mules, 
and passed numerous herds of cattle and a few Bedouin vil- 
lages. The weather was mild and pleasant, with a slight 
sprinkle of rain during the forenoon. On the ridge dividing 
the valley of El Huleh from Lake Tiberias, or the Sea of 
Galilee, we had a fine view of both lakes, the one lying 
in the broad plain through which we had passed, gleaming 
brightly through a mass of verdure ; the other, famed as the 
sacred waters of Galilee, almost encircled by barren mount- 
ains, dim in the haze, and still and desolate as it lay out- 
spread before us in the noonday sun. Far and near, which 
ever way we looked, the mountains were blanched with the 
scorching heat of summer ; and all the rains of autumn were 
still swallowed by the thirsty earth, and still there was the 
same dreary waste of whitish stones and sodless heights ; 
dreary and shadowless, yet rich beyond all that earth could 
yield in the history of Him who had stilled the tempest and 
walked upon the waters. 

As we wound our way among the barren rocks we saw sev- 
eral Arabs skulking about the cliffs, armed with long guns, 
and apparently watching our motions with keen interest. 
By certain signs they seemed to communicate with others in 
advance ; and now and then, when they thought we were 
not looking, they disappeared and ran along on the other 
side of the ridge, so as to keep pace with us. Our dragoman 
looked uncommonly anxious and downcast, which made me 
think he was very much afraid that some of these suspicious 
vagabonds would get away before he could get a good chance 



THE REBEL SHEIK. 



307 



to shoot them. On this account, as I supposed, he kept very 
close to us, we being altogether unarmed, so as to be on the 
spot when the attack commenced, and at the same time af- 
ford us protection with his courage and fire-arms. 

But it seemed as if we were doomed never to enjoy a good 
adventure in the way of an attack from the Arabs. No mat* 
ter how fervently we wished to be robbed (having only a 
trifle of small change about us), I verily believe had we hung 
bags of gold on our backs, and invited every prowling thief 
we met on the way to shoot at us ; had we proclaimed aloud 
that it would greatly oblige us to be peppered with slugs or 
knocked on the head, so as to have a genuine adventure, to 
put down in our journals, and talk about when we got home, 
not one would have dared to undertake such a thing, so effi- 
ciently were we protected by our dragoman. These fellows, 
who watched us so closely, were, as we soon discovered, the 
followers of a noted refugee from the Turkish Government, 
formerly the Sheik of Baalbek, who had fortified himself in 
the ruins of Khan Jub Yusef. 

As we rode up in front of the Khan, the Sheik came out 
and received us with great civility. He was followed by a 
few armed men, who, upon seeing that there were no spies 
in the party, dropped off quietly, and sat down on the rocks, 
some distance off. A long conversation took place between 
the two heroes (our own and the hero of the Khan), the sub- 
stance of which appeared to be this : that the Sheik, unable 
to endure the oppressive sway of the Turks, had taken up 
arms against them, resolved to die fighting for the freedom 
of his country. All the followers that he could prevail upon 
to join his standard amounted only to nineteen ; yet with this 
handful of men he had fought and slain more Turks than he 
could count. Himself and his party were sentenced to be 
hunted throughout the land, and shot down, tortured, or muti- 
lated, wherever they could be found. Several had been killed 
at different times in battle ; three had recently been captured 
in a foraging expedition down by Tiberias, and, after suffer- 
ing the crudest tortures, were shot and hung upon poles, as 
a warning to the rest of the band. For himself (the Sheik), 



308 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



there was no hope but to kill a few more Turks before he diet* 
Already he had been hunted like a wild beast throughout 
the length and breadth of the land ; his comrades had been 
scattered and shot down till only himself and six or eight 
remained; but they were resolved to sell their lives dearly. 

The Sheik was one of the finest-looking men I had seen in 
the East. He was about thirty years of age, tall and well- 
proportioned, and easy and dignified in his manners. His 
features were of the true Oriental cast, regular and pleasing 
in repose, but indicative of a fiery temperament, and the un- 
limited sway of the passions when once aroused. Nothing 
could be finer than his eyes- — dark, brilliant, and piercing ; 
at times gentle as a woman's, yet alternately, as he changed 
from calmer themes to the oppression of the Turks, flashing 
with a savage hatred that was perfectly withering in its 
ferocity. His costume was rich and picturesque. It con 
sisted of a handsome turban, which set ofT his dark flowing 
beard to great advantage ; loose trowsers, profusely embroid- 
ered ; a costly vest", ornamented with braid and silver but- 
tons ; and over his shoulders an ample robe, resembling a 
poncho, of rich and beautiful colors. There was a natura] 
ease in all his movements, an unaffected dignity in his man- 
ners, a genuine eloquence in the rich tones of his voice and 
the copious flow of his language, that I have seldom seen 
equaled, and never surpassed, in any other part of the world. 

Within the Khan we caught a glimpse of his wife, a beau- 
tiful young creature, who bounded away like a frightened 
fawn as we entered. No wonder the Sheik guarded well his 
ruined Khan, for it held within it a living treasure — a being 
of grace and beauty — whom he doubtless loved with all the 
passion of his race, whose gentle and confiding eyes were all 
that smiled upon him now. 

No : there was another treasure, dearer to him perhaps 
than his wife. An Arab may have something like a true 
regard for a woman ; there is no reason why he should not, 
except that it is not the custom of the country, and an Arab 
regulates bis affections pretty much like ourselves — according 
to custom. In Oriental countries it is customary to love a 



THE REBEL SHEIK. 



309 



favorite horse with great constancy and devotion : the Sheik 
of Baalbek had a beautiful horse, and the probability is that 
he was even more attached to it than he was to his beautiful 
wife. Nor is it (to reduce every thing to the pure ore of 
truth) at all unlikely that he had two or three more wives, 
equally charming, hidden away in some dark corner of the 
ruins. The reason why my suspicions were aroused on this 
subject was, that he took a great deal of pride in introducing 
us to his horse, while not the slightest intimation escaped him 
that such a thing as a wife was any where about the premises. 

It was my first sight of a genuine horse of the desert. I 
had seen in Zanzibar, and even in "Washington, horses called 
Arabians, and probably they were of Arab blood ; but there is 
just as much difference between the ordinary Arab horse and 
the true Bedouin breed (so seldom found except in the deserts) 
as there is between a cart-horse and a racer. This was cer- 
tainly one of the most beautiful animals of its kind. The 
delicacy of the features, the fine flashing eye, the small sharp 
ears, the proudly arched neck, the clean and symmetrica] 
limbs, were all indicative of the purest Arabian blood. What 
struck me most was the fierce pawing of the ground, the 
perpetual chafing, the restless and constant swaying to and 
fro of the head, all so fraught with a high spirit yet unbroken 
by the cruelty of man ; so like the motions of a caged beast, 
that frets and sways unceasingly in its barred prison, and 
ever pants for liberty, till the fire within burns away, and it 
dies untamed and savage to the last. Yet with all this 
chafing, this eloquent appeal for a return to desert-life, he 
seemed to know and love his master well : a w T ord, a touch, 
a motion of the hand, even a glance of that flashing eye, 
thrilled through him, and caused him to snuff the air, and 
quiver as if burning with some ungovernable impulse. 

The ordinary Syrian horse possesses many fine qualities 
though of course it can bear no comparison with the pure 
Arab. For powers of endurance, sureness of foot, spirit, and 
gentleness under proper management, it is difficult to find 
his equal. At Beirut almost every variety can be found at 
reasonable prices. 



CHAPTER. XXXTH. 



THE SYRIAN HOUSES 



While on the subject of horses, it may not be amiss to 
mention that we were extremely fortunate in that respect, 
No person who saw us mounted, and on our journey, would, 
for a moment, have supposed so, from the physical aspect of 
our animals ; but it was in remarkable points of character, 
rather than in the remarkable points which adorned their 
forms, that their chief merit consisted. Indeed, it would have 
been difficult to find four horses, either in Syria or any other 
part of the world, to compare with ours in general intelligence 
and reflective powers. That there was something akin to 
the noble faculty of thought, something of a much higher 
order than mere instinct, in every one of them, was beyond 
all question. As for Saladin, it is but simple justice to him 
to say, that he had a head that would have done honor to 
some of the Howadji whom I had met during my wanderings 
in the East. Not only did he carry an uncommon amount 
of brains in it. but he possessed, in an extraordinary degree, 
the faculty of doing himself credit by the manner in which he 
made use of them. His brains and his judgment went in 
partnership, as a general thing ; though, as all great mortals 
have their weak points, so I am forced to admit that Saladin 
had his. Strong in his passions, he sometimes suffered them 
to have unlimited sway over both his brains and his judg- 
ment, which is a weakness common to genius ; but if he was 
bitter in his resentments, he was also devoted in his attach- 
ments. There was no nonsense or affectation about him of 
any kind ; he professed nothing that he did not accomplish, in 
a zealous, off-hand manner. An enemy to the back-bone, he 
was a friend to the very bottom of his stomach. God bless 



THE SYRIAN HOESES. 311 

old Saladin ! I love him, with all his faults ! Day after day 
how he toiled for me up-hill and down-hill, over beds of rock 
and beds of mud, in sunshine and in storm, wherever I wished 
to go — save in those extreme cases, already referred to, when 
the fire of genius or the excess of vindictive passions caused 
him to forget, for the moment, that he carried so true a friend 
upon his back. 

The horse upon which the English Captain rode, was the 
most classical in form of any in the party ; that is to say, 
there was a rotundity of body in him that continually re- 
minded me of the fat horse in front of the Roman Capitol, 
and of the bronze horses in Is aples. which were probably mod- 
eled upon animals of the horse species that had recently been 
drowned. The Captain, doubtless, in view of this fact, as 
well as on account of his warlike spirit, called him "Waterloo ; 
but it was chiefly for fleetness of foot that Waterloo was dis- 
tinguished, in the eyes of the Captain. This conceit I always 
regarded as a weakness on the part of my friend ; because, to 
tell the truth, Waterloo was the only really clumsy animal in 
the party. The Captain, however, was firmly persuaded that 
Waterloo was born for a racer ; that he, Waterloo, had been 
a racer in early life, and had strained the muscle of one of his 
fore-legs, which accounted for the fact that he always came in 
at the end of every race on the journey. All that was neces- 
sary was, to keep the switch going : and certainly it did seem 
.essential, for the moment the Captain stopped switching, Wa- 
terloo stopped running. The switch was just as indispensa- 
ble a part of his machinery as the piston-rod to a steam-engine. 
When we set out in the morning, the right arm of the Cap- 
tain commenced working, just as regularly as machinery could 
work, and it only stopped when it was requisite that Waterloo 
should also stop. By night both parties were entirely ex- 
hausted with the labors of locomotion. But the most sin- 
gular part of it was, that my friend would never admit that 
Waterloo was not naturally a full-blooded racer. He would 
even go so far as to bet his hat on a trial of speed with Sala- 
din, which was a proposition so preposterous that I never could 
listen to it without a smile of disdain. 



312 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



The little iron-gray, upon which the tall Southerner rode, 
was, perhaps, the most ferocious and determined of the whole 
cavalcade, when aroused from his habitual sobriety, by any 
inspiring cause. We never came in sight of the Portuguese 
party, consisting of Dr. Mendoza, the Madam, Emanuel Bal 
thos, and their muleteers, that the iron-gray did not become 
perfectly frantic, and cause all his companions to become fran- 
tic by his capers. I don't know what was the reason — I only 
know that there was no beautiful little palfrey called Zulieka 
in our party. 

Yusef 's famous steed of the desert, Syed Sulemin, was part 
and parcel of himself. They certainly must have been born 
at the same time ; nursed in the same manger ; educated in 
the same school ; inspired by nature with the same warlike 
spirit and the same savage propensities ; so congenial were 
their souls, so well adapted the one to the other ; so thoroughly 
identified w T ere they in all the relations of life. If Yusef said, 
let us go, it was go ; if he said, let us stay, it was stay ; let us 
dance, it was dance ; let us fight, it was fight. No mattei 
what he thought, said, or did, Syed Sulemin thought, said, and 
did the same — not that they spoke exactly the same language, 
but there was a perfect understanding of tongues between them. 
The only material difference that I could discover in their 
points of character was, that when any thing like a real en- 
emy appeared, Syed Sulemin never stopped until Yusef said 
stop, rather decidedly ; and it was evident that he did so then 
more from habit than any positive desire he had to avoid a 
hostile meeting. It was really affecting to witness the ten- 
derness that existed between our dragoman and his beloved 
horse. Every morning, regularly, before mounting, Yusef 
greeted Syed Sulemin in the most brotherly manner. He 
asked him how he felt ; how had he slept ; what was the 
general state of his health ; had any body stolen his oats ; 
and upon being answered, as Syed Sulemin was in the habit 
of answering, by a peculiar working of the ears, a neighing 
and nickering, and other well-understood signs, Yusef could 
never restrain his affection, but invariably hugged him round 
the neck, exchanged kisses with him, and shook hands with 



THE SYRIAN HORSES. 



313 



his fore -foot to show him that they were still devoted friends, 
and never could he separated by any adversity of fortune. 
Often as this was repeated, Yusef never seemed to tire of it ; 
on the contrary, whenever we arrived at a Khan where there 
was a concourse of people, the very first thing he did upon 
dismounting was to say : Kiss me, you beauty ! and when 
Syed Sulemin had kissed him, Shake hands with me, you 
rascal ! and when Syed Sulemin had shaken hands, Fight 
me, you coward ! and when Syed had fought him, Dance for 
me, you cripple ! and when Syed had danced, Now fall down 
on your knees, and say you love me, you brute ! and when 
Syed had finished doing and saying all these things, and a 
great many others, Yusef looked triumphantly upon the as- 
sembled Arabs, as much as to say : "Wretches ! did you ever 
see the like of that before ? Filthy barbarians ! did you ever 
hear a horse talk English like that ? Miserable bumpkins ! 
don't you perceive that I am Yusef Badra, the renowned Dra- 
goman and Destroyer of Robbers ? Benighted dogs ! don't you 
understand, at a glance, that this is the famous Steed of the 
Desert, Syed Sulemin — that cost ten millions of piasters before 
he was born ! 

The only time I ever knew Yusef and Syed Sulemin to dis 
agree was on the occasion of an extraordinary display of horse- 
manship in which Yusef seldom indulged. It was at a small 
village on the road-side, where a large concourse of the in- 
habitants, including a number of women, had gathered on 
the house-tops to see the Frangi pass, especially to see Yusef, 
who had friends here, and who was generally regarded as a 
miraculous and most astounding character by aU villagers 
throughout Syria. On this occasion, he was resolved to show 
them his best specimen of horsemanship. Dashing up gal- 
lantly in front of the whole crowd, he whirled the djeered 
over his head, and then flung it up in the air to a prodigious 
height. As soon as it struck the ground he was on the spot ; 
when, with a proud smile of conscious skill, he hung over in 
his saddle till his hands reached the earth, and grasped the 
stick firmly so as to lift it up and whirl it over his head again. 
The Arabs were astounded ; but the sensation was premature. 





314 



A TEtUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Yusef neither lifted up the stick nor whirled it over his head 
on that occasion. Had he even lifted himself up without the 
stick, he might have sustained the illusion by a series of ficti- 
tious flourishes ; but he remained hanging there by the saddle 
in the most pitiable state of helplessness. He ragged, and 
writhed, and struggled, much in the style of a cat hung 
by the tail. It was all one : there he dangled entirely un- 
able either to lift himself up or extricate his feet from the 
stirrups. 

It was an awkward position for any man ; positively hu- 
miliating for one who was regarded as an Admirable Crichton 
by the whole female population of Syria ; more than awkward 
and humiliating in the presence of a large concourse of expe ■ 
rienced riders ; but intensely deplorable as a display of horse- 
manship on the part of the renowned Badra. the Prince of 
Dragomans and Destroyer of Robbers. The Arabs on :1a 
house-tops laughed aloud ; the women tittered and screamed, 
and. to the best of my belief, asked Yusef if he stood in need 
of their assistance, which was an exceedingly satirical and 
feminine question ; for the truth was. Yusef didn't stand at 
all ; if he needed any assistance he rather hung in need 
of it. 

Fortunately, however. Syed Sulemin stood. It was admir- 
able to behold the resignation with which he turned his head 
and contemplated the struggles of his friend and master. 
"What else could he do ? It was not in horse-flesh to lend a 
helping hand on such an occasion. Syed Sulemin could not 
reasonably be expected to take hold of Yusef in his teeth and 
throw him up on his back again ; hence, like a philosopher, 
he calmly awaited the result. 

Mustapha. the muleteer, happening to come along about 
this time, and perceiving his renowned master hanging by 
the leg in that critic a] position, stood by and contemplated 
the scene for some moments in profound astonishment. Had 
he been a vindictive or revengeful man. he would, in remem- 
brance of the beatings he had received in Baneas and other 
places, have passed on ; but Mustapha had a kind and for- 
giving heart, As soon as he discovered that it really was not 



THE SYRIAN HOUSES. 



315 



an intentional display of horsemanship, he seized Yusef in his 
arms and extricated the embarrassed leg from the stirrups. 

I am sorry to say that Yusef, owing, perhaps, to a flow of 
blood to the head, took his stick immediately upon regaining 
the saddle, and struck Syed Sulemin several times with great 
fury ; which Syed Sulemin resented by running away from 
the scene of the disaster, and ftever stopping till he reached 
the next village. Furthermore, that soon after our arrival at 
that village, where we spent the night, Yusef, who had never 
spoken a word since the disaster, now broke forth and charged 
Mustapha with having stolen his oats on the previous night. 
This Mustapha denied most indignantly. Yusef said that to 
deny so palpable a fact was to call him a liar ; whereupon 
he fell to work with his stick and beat Mustapha ; nor is it 
probable that he would have desisted until he had fairly 
flayed the poor fellow from head to foot, had I not interfered 
and sternly protested against such a severe mode of punish- 
ment. Next morning Syed Sulemin and his master kissed 
and made up ; and Mustapha relieved his feelings on the 
road by riding on top of the baggage on his mule, some dis- 
tance in the rear of Yusef, and convulsing himself and all the 
other muleteers with silent laughter ; as also by showing 
every body, except our dragoman, how a djeered may be 
picked up in certain cases. 

To complete this sketch, I may as well add that, besides 
the four horses above described, we had three baggage mules, 
all respectable animals in their way. They belonged to the 
Arabs who drove them, and were much like their masters — 
rugged and unpromising in appearance, but capable of endur- 
ing any amount of fatigue, when driven to it by the force of 
circumstances. The only fault they had* was an unprofitable 
habit of lying down with our baggage in the middle of every 
marsh and river that lay across our road. It was a habit 
equally unprofitable to both parties, because it damaged our 
provisions, saturated our bedding, ruined our books and maps, 
put us out of temper, and did the mules no good whatever, 
inasmuch as they only increased the weight by the amount 
of water soaked up in that way, besides the beatings they re* 



316 



A CRUSADE EN THE EAST. 



ceived for the trouble. But it was no use to reason witJfc 
them ; they would do it ; somehow it afforded them satisfac- 
tion. 

Before proceeding on our journey to the Sea of Galilee. 
I must not forget another remarkable feature that usually 
was prominent- -in our travels. While we are winding our 
way toward Tiberias, with nothing but bare and desolate 
rocks on both sides, permit me to introduce you to our friend 
and fellow-traveler ? Tokina. 

Attached to our party was a small donkey, which often ex- 
cited my wonder by his great spirit and pow T ers of endurance. 
Tokina was his name ; and, although it could not be denied 
that he was an ass — a perfect ass, I may say — yet he was a 
most sensible little fellow, and had a soul very much above 
any common ass. He was not much bigger than a Newfound- 
land dog. but he had an amount of ambition concealed be- 
neath his shaggy little hide that would have done honor to 
any horse in Syria. If his ears were long, so was his head ; 
he carried a good deal in it as well as on it. 

There was not an inch of the way from Beirut to the sum- 
mit of Mount Lebanon, and from the* summit of Mount Leb 
anon to Damascus, and from Damascus to Jerusalem, that he 
did not bear himself bravely under all circumstances ; never 
once flagging, however great his burden ; always trotting 
along briskly, tumbling into rivers and ditches, and climbing 
out again as much alive as ever ; carrying immense lazy 
Arabs on his back up hill and down hill, and running away 
now and then, and kicking all the mules within his reach. 
Tokina was not only a remarkable ass, but a transcendentalism 
There was no telling what he was about half the time, he 
maintained such an aspect of profound wisdom, and used such 
obscure and uncouth language to explain himself. He was 
also something of a politician ; that is to say, he was very 
fond of any body that gave him oats, and always wagged his 
ears and smiled pleasantly when he expected little attentions 
of that kind. When imposed upon by unmerciful riding, he 
would bear il all patiently, never tripping until a good oppor- 
tunity occurred of making something by it ; and then he 



THE SYRIAN HORSES. 



317 



would stumble into a ditch, as if by accident, and come out 
rejoicing without saddle or rider. I often imagined when he 
brayed on occasions of this kind that he meant to say: ' : Bis- 
millah ! you are in the mud now ! See how I throw dirt on 
you ! You needn't think to impose upon me because I'm 
little. By the beard of the Prophet ! a pretty fellow you are, 
truly ! Two hundred pounds' weight nearly riding on a little 
chap like me ! But don't think because you're a bigger ass 
than I am that you can come it over me in this way much 
longer- I won't stand it : if I do may I be turned into a 
two-legged animal, and walk on end all the days of my life!" 
VYhereupon he would kick up his heels and dash off, laughing 
to himself in such wise that it was perfectly human. Then 
to catch him was a job that afforded us infinite diversion; to 
see him dodge under the mules, and run behind and before 
the horses, and upset the Arabs that w r ere on foot ; it was 
such innocent relaxation for a great mind. Being ridden 
upon he seemed to regard as one of the necessary evils of 
society, and bore it always as long as he could ; the greatest 
ass in the world could not do more. Doubtless he saw how 
the big people around him rode on the little people, and how 
the principle extends from the highest to the lowest of the 
living kind — those with vertical as well as those with hori- 
zontal backs. If he made use of his senses, he could not 
help perceiving that the various governments of Europe rode 
,on Turkey ; that Turkey rode on the Pashas of Syria ; that 
the Pashas of Syria rode on Yusef Badra, the Destroyer of 
Hobbers : that Yusef rode on Mustapha. and Musiapha on the 
back of his mule ; that life is a general system of riding and 
being ridden upon, and even the smallest of asses has a weight 
of despotism to bear upon his back. 

I have often thought that the auto-biography of a Syrian 
ass would be most interesting and instructive. AYhat strange 
revelations he could give us of character, adventure, and 
book-making ! What valuable reflections on the antiquities 
of Palestine ! What rich and copious notes on affairs of Gov- 
ernment ! Pardon any thing thou may'st deem amiss in these 
remarks, Tokina ! for I know and love thee well, and meaiz 



318 



A CHUSADE IN THE EAST. 



thee no offense. If thou should 'st feel at all hurt, remember 
that I, your best friend, who have saved thee many a beating, 
am of the human species myself; and accept as a peace-of- 
fering the sketch herewith appended, in which I have endeav- 
ored to do justice to thy personal beauty, and at the same 
time show the world that thou art grievously imposed upon ! 




CHAPTER XXXVIII 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 



Soon after leaving the ruins of Khan Jub Yusef, we en- 
tered upon a bed of solid rock. It was a perfect picture of 
desolation. Scarcely so much as a blade of glass was in sight. 
All was blanched and barren around for many miles, and 
there was no sign of life save the bleating of a few sheep, 
and the sad lowing of camels from the valley. The pathway 
was marked by holes worked in the rocks by mules and car- 
avans. It had been traveled over in the same way for cen- 
turies upon centuries past. As we came out toward the brow 
of the hill overlooking the lake there was a change in the 
scene more like some enchanting optical illusion than any 
thing real. There lay outspread before us in the calm of the 
evening the beautiful valley of Genesareth, its green fields 
and groves of olives glistening, after the morning showers, in 
a flood of rich sunshine. The lake was placid and clear, and 
light clouds were sleeping calmly on the tops of the mount- 
ains. Bare and desolate were those craggy heights, yet rich 
beyond all the powers of art in the glow of the evening sun. 
Descending by a stony path, we at length entered the valley, 
leaving to the left the village of Tell Hum. We stopped a 
while at an old ruin called the Khan Minyah, where we saw 
a few ragged Arabs sitting out on the roof, smoking their 
pipes, and listening to the traditional romances of some old 
story-teller. A few compliments passed, some questions were 
asked and answered, on both sides, when we rode on through 
the low and well-watered plain, amid groves of fig-trees and 
olives. The air was deliciously soft and balmy. A fresh 
scent of flowers arose from the earth, and around us there 



320 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



were green slopes of grass, and banks of fragrant herbs, and 
thick shrubberies of oleander in full bloom. Camels browsed 
lazily among the bushes ; herds of sheep were scattered over 
the openings of meadow, and lambs ran frisking from us as 
we passed ; the cackling of hens and the distant barking of 
dogs about the villages fell pleasantly on the ear ; and some- 
times we crossed little streams of limpid water, lingering like 
ourselves to catch each beauty by the wayside, yet ever jour- 
neying on to the Sea of Death. Here and there we saw a 
swarthy Bedouin, seated upon the rocks with his pipe in his 
hand, watching the smoke from his lips as it curled upward, 
and vanished in the air. Pelicans stood upon the shores of 
the lake peering into the clear water in search of prey ; and 
the dapper duck sported about on its surface, diving out of 
sight as we approached. Yusef meantime entertained us 
with the wonderful history of Hassin, the Dragon-killer ; 
telling us all about the way in which Hassin outwitted the 
Grand Vizier, and slew the most ferocious seven-headed dragon 
that ever existed ; how he went off to court the daughter of 
the Sultan, a cruel Princess who had a palace built of the 
skulls of her lovers, and only wanted one more skull to finish 
it ; how she set him to work to test the sincerity of his pro- 
fessions by ordering him to eat at a single meal forty cows, 
four hundred sheep, two thousand chickens, and a thousand 
baskets of bread ; also to drink twenty or thirty hogsheads 
of wine, and empty every well of water within a circuit of 
ten miles ; how Hassin, by helping a giant out of a cobweb, 
in which he (the giant) had become entangled under the 
disguise of a fly, so won upon the regard of that distinguished 
person that he made himself as small as an ordinary man, 
for convenience, and disguised in Hassin' s clothes did eat all 
the cows, sheep, chickens, and bread, and drink all the wine 
and water, and then call for more, protesting that such trifles 
as these only gave him an appetite ; how Hassin eventually 
carried off the Princess, and lived with her in a palace of 
gold ornamented with diamonds and precious stones, and be- 
came known throughout the whole world as the greatest of 
Sultans, and was called ever after Hassin, the Dragon-killer, 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 



32i 



In due time we emerged from the bushes, and came out 
upon the pebbly beach of the lake, not far beyond Ain-et-Tin. 
"We rode at once into the . clear sparkling water. It was pure 
as crystal, and so calm that the mountains on the other side 
seemed suspended in the air, and the reflection of the sky 
was as rich in quiet beauty as the sky itself. The ruined vil- 
lages along the shores presented strange and mystic pictures 
in their inverted shadows ; palm-trees overhung the deep 
with all their mirrored richness of outline ; white ruins of 
mosques glittered in the distance ; the naked and craggy 
mountains behind were steeped in an atmosphere of purple ; 
and the waters and the mountains were wrapt in the sub- 
limity of repose and the hallowed associations of the past. 

Much of the pleasure we experienced in viewing these 
scenes, it must be admitted, arose from the physical comfort 
we enjoyed in the genial glow of the evening, after our sad 
experience in crossing the snow-capped heights of Jebel-esh- 
Sheik, and our sufferings in the Mill of Malaha. Apart from 
the scriptural interest so interwoven with every spot around 
the Sea of Galilee, and the gratification of finding some place 
upon which to refresh the eye, after days of travel through 
desert regions of parched earth and sterile hills, there is in 
reality but little in the natural scenery about the lake, unac- 
companied by freshening rains and a glowing sky, to attract 
attention. The valley of Genesareth is certainly a charming 
spot, but the charm is greatly heightened by the predisposi- 
tion to be enchanted in the eye of the beholder. Around the 
shores of the lake the mountains are much the same as all 
the mountains throughout Palestine ; and it is only in certain 
conditions of the atmosphere that they acquire that beauty 
which had so delighted us. This I think it due to the reader 
to state, in order that he may not be disappoin ;ed should he 
ever visit that region. 

Continuing along the shores of the lake for a few miles, we 
took to the road again, and soon arrived at the village of 
Medjdel, a collection of miserable huts pleasantly situated a 
short distance from the water, under the brow of an abrupt 
cliff. Medjdel is interesting as the birth-place of Mary Mag- 



322 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST, 



dalene. We had no time to explore the caves or artificial 
grottoes in the cliff. 

Passing over a rocky and precipitous path, along the shores 
of the lake, we at length beheld the castle and ruins of Ti- 
berias, once the capital of Galilee. 

Tiberias is handsomely situated on a slope facing the lake. 
It is a filthy and dilapidated town, built in the Saracenij 
style, and is at present in a wretched state of ruin and de- 
cay. One or two mosques in the upper part on the hill-side, 
and a few scattering palm-trees among the ruins of the an- 
cient city, give it something of an Oriental character. The 
foundations of the old walls and the remains of the ruined 
gateways are still standing ; and the broken columns and 
friezes scattered about the outskirts of the town bear evidence 
of its grandeur in by-gone centuries. The first view, on the ap- 
proach, embraces the ruined castle on the top of the hill and 
the immense gateway and fortifications. From these it would 
appear that in the days of its prosperity Tiberias must have 
been a city of considerable importance. Columns and cor- 
nices of massive proportions, beautifully cut, lie partially im- 
bedded in the ground ; and large blocks of stone, which evi- 
dently occupied in remote periods a prominent place in the 
temples and palaces, are scattered about for many miles. 
Portions of the ancient walls are nearly perfect; but the 
greater part seem to have been shaken down by some con- 
vulsion of nature — probably the great earthquake which de- 
stroyed Safed — or shattered into ruin by the ravages of the 
wars between the Turks and Syrians. This city was once 
the capital of Galilee, and was famed in later periods of its 
history as the principal seat of Rabbinical learning. It con- 
tains at present a population of several thousand, chiefly 
Jews, who hold it by sufferance of the Turks. Some of the 
most learned of the Rabbi composed and promulgated their 
works here, and at one period it boasted institutions of learn- 
ing and historical research unequaled by any in the East. 
The streets are narrow and unpaved, the houses are of filthy 
appearance, and the aspect of the inhabitants sickly and 
emaciated. Unlike the larger towns in Syria through which 



THE SEA OF GALILEE. 



32S 



we had passed, Tiberias showed no symptoms of European in- 
fluence. The turbans and fezzes, the loose flowing robes and 
Oriental slippers, the sashes of rich silks, and all the peculi- 
arities of costume which distinguish a purely Oriental people, 
existed here without change or innovation. Many of the 
Jewish women, w r hom we accidentally saw as we passed by 
the doors, had fine features but seemed wasted and haggard 
from sickness. The children were gaudily dressed in red and 
yellow robes, and were remarkable for their beauty. The 
shops are mean and filthy. A lethargy apparently hung over 
the place. Turbaned and dark-bearded men, with downcast 
eyes and sallow faces, walked slowly through the narrow 
streets, and seemed to sigh as if they bore some weight upon 
them that an eternity of years could not remove. Vailed and 
shrouded women glided in from the doorways, and the ghosts 
of shriveled old women sat crouchingly in the sun, shaking their 
palsied heads, and moaning as if they never more could feel 
its genial warmth. Starved and hairless dogs staggered about 
through the filth, stopping here and there to scratch up the 
bones of some carcass ; foul odors filled the air, and green 
and foetid pools of water lay stagnant among the ruins. 

We stopped at the only tolerable house in the place, a sort 
of hotel for Frank travelers, kept by one Wiseman, a German 
Jew. Our arrival occasioned the liveliest commotion through- 
out the establishment. Women and children ran all about, 
screaming at the top of their voices that the Howadji had 
come — to be in a hurry— to get out of the way- — to stop 
making such a noise — to be stirring about, and not stand 
staring at one another like fools ; while we, calling for water, 
sat down in the big room, and heard w T ater echoed all over 
the house in German, Italian, and Arabic; but saw nothing 
of it for half an hour at least. Herr Wiseman, our host, was 
all that a host could be, good-humored, busy, and obliging. 
He, showed us, among other important evidences of the repu- 
tation of his establishment, the register of names, from which 
it appeared that Lord Somebody and suite had spent three 
days here en ronte to Damascus ; explored the Lake of Tibe- 
rias ; were highly gratified with their visit, especially his 



324 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



lordship, who, with the exception of a bad night's rest in con- 
sequence of the fleas, enjoyed himself exceedingly ; would re- 
commend all travelers to take a boat and view the lake by 
moonlight. Tres contents with the hotel, but his lordship 
could not, in justice to his friends, say that the beds were al- 
together free from the nuisance of fleas. That Mr. Somebody- 
else, chancellor to a British Consulate, fully concurred in the 
opinions and sentiments expressed by the aforesaid lord, and 
would add, for the benefit of the traveling public, that excel- 
lent fish might be caught in the lake, and sportsmen could 
find capital shooting on the other side, but on no account to 
venture out without a flask of brandy, London brand. That 
the Hon. Lady Blank, attended by her dragoman and servants, 
was on her way from Jerusalem and the Dead Sea to Damas- 
cus, and hoped to spend the summer in Constantinople ; was 
highly gratified by her visit to Tiberias, and considered Herr 
Wiseman a most accommodating and obliging person, but 
would advise all travelers to call for fish, and by no means to 
order beefsteak, as the beefsteak here was positively ruined in 
the cooking, unless personally superintended. 

From the windows of our chamber we had a good view of 
the lake. There were tw 7 o or three boats down by the water ; 
but, not having romance enough in our party to go on a moon- 
light excursion, we spent the evening in writing up our jour- 
nals. At an early hour next morning after breakfast, our 
mules being sent on to Nazereth with the baggage, we mount- 
ed our horses, and rode down to see the famous warm baths 
of Tiberias. These baths are situated about two miles from 
the town, at the extremity of the valley. They have long 
been celebrated for their medicinal virtues, and are much re- 
sorted to by invalids. At present a good building, erected 
by Ibrahim Pasha, covers the chief spring. In the centre of 
the largest apartment is a spacious reservoir, into which the 
water, warm from the mountain, falls from the mouth of a 
stone lion. The floors are of marble, and all conveniences 
are found for bathing. The visitor may swim about in the 
pure element if he likes, and, for a few piasters, become thor- 
oughly saturated with sulphur. There is an inner apart 



THE SEA OF GALILEE. 



325 



ment of smaller dimensions where the water is of still higher 
temperature — so warm, indeed, that at first it is painful to 
bear the hand in it. Invalids may be parboiled here to per- 
fection ; and it is said that they come from all parts of the 
country for that purpose. The water is clear and pure, and 
is strongly impregnated with gas and sulphur. Doubtless its 
medicinal virtues are not exaggerated : and the day may come 
when some enterprising Yankee will purchase the premises, 
and have out his bills throughout the hotels of the East, 
"Sulphur Baths of Galilee — Pavilion of Tiberias: boats, 
horses, and bowling saloons always ready for visitors ; the 
best liquors kept at the bar; pleasure trips to Safed only 12± 
cents ; steamer Pasha leaves for Tell Hum and all the inter- 
mediate ports twice a day : Fare 25 cents. Zachary Doolit- 
tie, Proprietor." 





BATHS OF TIBERIAS. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



JOURNEY TO NAZARETH. 

From Tiberias we ascended by a mountain-pass toward 
Nazareth. It was a day of deadened sunshine ; sallow in 
its light, but not cloudy ; so still that the hum of life rose up 
from the valley and followed us to the height, where we 
turned to look back upon the sacred waters. On the right, 
over on the mountain, lay the ruins of Safed. 

Years ago, I forget how many, occurred the great earth- 
quake that laid it desolate. It was a scene of terror well- 
remembered by the survivors and by the inhabitants of Tibe- 
rias. I stopped awhile to trace out the sad havoc that had 
been made there ; and, while I gazed upon its mouldering 
vestiges, the past seemed to rise before me in all its terrible 
reality. 

A murky gloom hung over the shores of Galilee. No gleam 
of sunshine rested upon the sacred waters. The hot air was 
stagnant upon the mountains, and the valley of Genesareth 
lay parched in the stillness. Its groves of olives were with- 
ered ; its herds were motionless ; its ruined temples without 
shadow. From the heights of Safed down into the pulseless 
waters below there was a hush of life ; for the presage of Doom 
was spread abroad. A death-pall lay upon the blanched earth. 

Then there came a low sighing out of the gloom, but none 
knew whence it came. Fear smote upon the hearts of the 
people, and they fell prostrate and prayed. There was a 
feverish trembling of the earth, and it was still again ; and 
cgain it trembled and moaned, and again it was still. The 
hour was come ; it came not with a sudden shock, but with 
the slow certainty of fate. A deep, sad wail of death rose 



JOURNEY TO NAZARETH. 



327 



upon the air. All living things fled, hut they knew not 
where to flee. The plains opened in smoking fissures, and 
the mountains were cleft asunder hy a hand that man hath 
never seen, and great rocks rolled crashing down into the 
depths helow. Shrieks of terror mingled with the crash, and 
smoking masses of earth were upheaved, and "buried beneath 
them houses and temples, and all that stood upon its sod. Men 
rushed from their abodes and smote their breasts, crying, Woe ! 
woe ! a judgment hath fallen upon Safed ! Women fled shriek- 
ing with their children into the dark caverns. But there was 
death in the noonday light, and there was death in the dark- 
ness ; all was desolation and death ; wherever they fled, des- 
olation and death. Crushed beneath the falling masses, they 
lay buried in a sepulchre of ruins. The dread doom had come ; 
there were no sounds but the sounds of woe. Woe to the highest 
and the lowest ; woe, woe to Safed ; woe to all that were there 
that fatal day. The living were buried, and the dead were 
cast up from their graves, and the living and the dead were 
entombed in the convulsed earth to moulder henceforth to- 
gether. Days after, putrid corpses were dragged from the 
ruins : strong men, crushed and maimed, grasping masses of 
ruin in their clenched hands as they died ; the corpses of 
mothers, with their skeleton arms still twined around their 
babes ; blackened and bleeding, some were dragged out to 
drink in the light of heaven once more, and die raving mad. 
. happy fate for them that were crushed to rise no more ! 
For days after, the living lay maimed in the sad chaos, and 
smothered cries were heard when Safed was no more — wail- 
ing for the lost that were never to be seen again ; for the dead 
that never more could know the bitterness of life. 

The dream was ended : I turned and rode on toward the 
plain of Hatim. 

On the ridge, as we left Tiberias, we had a fine view of 
Mount Tabor, which, from its regular outline, standing alone 
on the plain of Bsdraelon, is easily distinguished from the 
neighboring mountains. We passed some rich spots of ground 
on our way this morning, and saw the Arabs at work scratch- 
ing it up for the spring crops with their rude wooden plows 



328 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



and stunted oxen. On the left, two hours from Tiberias, we 
passed the village of Lubieh, pleasantly situated on a mount- 
ain slope, and surrounded by groves of olives. Sometime 
during the forenoon, we passed through the famous plain of 
Kurim Hatin, where was fought one of the bloodiest of the 
battles between the Christians and the Saracens that occurred 
during the Crusades. Saladin, the hero of the Saracen hosts, 
here added to his fame by deeds of bravery scarcely paral- 
leled in the history of those sanguinary wars. It was on the 
plain of Kurin Hatim, according to some writers, that Christ 
fed the five thousand with the loaves, and on one of the neigh- 
boring heights preached his Sermon on the Mount ; but the 
best authorities deny that there is any satisfactory evidence of 
this. 

In the valleys that swept down on the left, we saw a num- 
ber of Bedouin encampments ; and on the road met straggling 
parties of ragged and suspicious-looking fellows, armed with 
guns, who eyed us scowlingly, but always passed on when 
they caught sight of Yusef. The missionaries in Damascus 
had advised us to take a guard from Baneas to Nablous, as 
that was the most dangerous part of the road. We had heard 
a good many stories, especially of the dreadful state of things 
between Tiberias and Nazareth, where, it was said that it 
was an every-day occurrence to be knocked on the head and 
beaten within an inch of one's life, if not killed outright, by 
the banditti w T ho infested that region. Confident, however, 
that Yusef would slay them all if they attacked us, we dis- 
pensed with the guard, and encountered every risk, under a 
most agreeable sense of security. 

Early in the afternoon we passed through the village of 
Ker Kenna or Cana, and stopped at the lower part, near a 
fine grove of pomegranates, where we found excellent water. 
It was here that Christ turned the water into wine, and we 
could not but feel as w T e drank from the flowing spring, that 
there was something in its scriptural associations to make it 
a memorable event in our journey. There was a luxury in 
sitting here by the fragrant pomegranates smoking our pipes 
after our morning's ride, and watching the children as they 



JOURNEY TO NAZARETH 



329 



came down from Cana with their earthen pitchers, as in olden 
times, to carry up water from the well. A few lazy Arabs 
gathered around us to see what we were doing ; they watche 1 
with particular interest the progress of a sketch that I made 
of the well, pronouncing it, as I supposed from their manner, 
the most wonderful work of art they had ever beheld. These 
people, like all we had seen in this part of the world, seem to 
recognize no difference between winter and summer. They 
were clad in loose rags, although the weather was cool, and 
in their huts seldom used fire, except a few coals to boil their 
coffee and light their pipes. We gave them a trifling back- 
shish for looking at us, and, wishing them a pleasant time of 
it, went on our way toward Nazareth. 



CHAPTER XL. 



NAZARETH. 



Leaving- Mount Tabor several hours on the left, we passed 
through the village of Remeh, and descended into the valley 
beyond. On again ascending we came in view of Nazareth. 
Apart from its scriptural associations, there is little about 
Nazareth to attract attention. It is a mere village of square, 
flat-roofed houses, situated on the side of a hill, with a mosque 
and some large buildings, occupied by the monks, in the lower 
part. The valley is well-wooded with olive trees, which ex- 
tend up beyond the houses toward the top of the hill. A few 
palm trees present a picturesque outline near the mosque. 
The general appearance of the valley of Nazareth is similar 
to that of most of the valleys through which one passes in 
Syria. Before reaching the. town we came to a square plat 
of ground, inclosed by a stone wall, within which stands a 
convent. We were met at the door by a Greek priest, who 
invited us to enter. This convent is said to cover the spot on 
which the Virgin Mary was born. We took off our hats and 
went in. Places of this kind are turned into mere catch- 
penny shows, and there is no evidence of their being the 
identical places referred to in the Scriptures, other than the 
traditional testimony of the monks. The convents built upon 
them are sustained chiefly by the contributions of pilgrims 
and travelers, and these contributions depend of course upon 
the skill of the monks in maintaining the authenticity of the 
localities. That the position of Nazareth is well established, 
I believe admits of no doubt ; but farther than that is uncer- 
tain. The spot upon which it is said the Virgin was born is 
in a sort of vault in the back part of the chapel ; it js covered 



NAZARETH. 



331 



with a square marble slab, over which is erected a canopy. 
There is a well of fine water underneath, from which we 
drank. While we were looking on, several priests entered 
with lighted wax candles, and went through various cere- 
monies ; kneeling and kissing repeatedly the marble slab. A 
poor old woman, covered with rags, forced herself in through 
the crowd, and fell groaning upon the floor, kissing the cold 
stones and the robes of the priests with frantic eagerness. She 
seemed to be under the influence of religious excitement, and 
would probably have left us in that belief had she not, when 
we turned to depart, bounced up with activity, and headed us 
off before we reached the door, begging vociferously for alms. 
The change in the expression of her countenance was quite 
miraculous. She was no longer the groaning devotee ; it was 
plain enough to see that there was method in her madness. 
We gave her a few piasters, and also a trifle to the worthy 
priest, who was equally assiduous in his attentions. Both of 
them wished us a happy journey, and we wished them a con- 
tinuance of their profits. 

We stopped at the house up in Nazareth built by the Latin 
monks for the accommodation of pilgrims ; a very clean and 
convenient stone building, with rooms that seemed grand, 
after the wretched places we had slept in since leaving Da- 
mascus. It was a long time before the keys came, but they 
came at last, very much to our satisfaction. It was too late 
to see any thing that evening ; so promising ourselves a 
pleasant trip to Mount Tabor next morning, we turned in 
after dinner, and slept soundly through the night. 

The monks of the Latin convent treated us very kindly. 
We were visited by several of them, and found them friendly 
and obliging. Of course we paid well for every thing we 
had ; but we got the value, besides pleasant smiles and kind 
words. 

In tr*3 "traveler's register we saw the names of several ac- 
quaintances, among others that of our excellent Minister to 
Constantinople, Mr. Marsh, and his family, and some tourists 
from Kentucky. Mr. Marsh was taken ill here a few months 
before on his return from Egypt. He bears testimony to the 



332 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



kind treatment which himself and family received from the 
monks during his stay in Nazareth. We saw also the name 
of an American gentleman who appeared to be a most inde- 
fatigable traveler in the East and throughout Europe. Yery 
few registers that I saw any where were without his signa- 
ture. I saw it on the ruins of Baalbek, and on various other 
ruins ; and met with no minister, consul, traveler, dragoman, 
or guide who was not acquainted with him personally or by 
reputation. Among the Arabs he was generally known as 
my Lord Willoughby, a mistake that doubtless originated in 
the passion for titles displayed by his dragoman, Emanuel 
Balthos. I also frequently met with the name of a much- 
esteemed traveling companion from Boston, who, doubtless 
from the same cause, was remembered throughout the East 
as the Prince of Wales. Not only do I believe that this will 
be news to both of these gentlemen, but caution all travelers 
who may come after me through that land of metaphor not 
to misconstrue the fact in any way should they find it reported 
that General Sir John Brown, of the City of Magnificent 
Distances, accompanied by the Prince of Wilmington and Lord 
Captain Bullfinch, had just passed ; but to attribute it all to 
our dragoman, whose passion for display in matters of this 
kind is perfectly incorrigible. 

It is recorded in the register of the Latin Convent by a Mr. 
Alwyn, of Quebec, some six or eight months ago, that he was 
robbed and cruelly beaten by the Arabs near Djenin. I had 
heard of the affair in Smyrna, and now read it in his own 
handwriting. It appeared that he was traveling through 
Palestine accompanied only by his dragoman. Three miles 
from Djenin he was attacked by four Arabs, who dragged 
him from his horse and beat him with stones and clubs till 
they thought he was dead. The dragoman made his escape, 
and it was supposed he was an accomplice of the robbers. 
Mr. Alwyn found, upon coming to his senses, that his skull 
was fractured in several places, and he lay for some hours 
unable to move. At length some traveling Arabs passing 
that way took him to Djenin. The Sheik refused to let him 
have a horse to take him to Nazareth, without an assurance 



NAZARETH. 



333 



of forty piasters, which he had to promise on the prospect of 
obtaining it from the Latin monks, as he had been plundered 
of all his money. On his arrival in Nazareth he was most 
kindly and hospitably received by the monks, who paid for 
his horse, dressed his wounds, fed him, and took good care of 
him for three months, when he was sufficiently recovered to 
proceed on his journey. Our companion, the English Captain, 
was chief officer in the steamer in which he took passage, 
and bore testimony to the truth of the narrative. 

On the day after our arrival in Nazareth the weather was 
so unpromising that we were reluctantly forced to abandon 
our visit to Mount Tabor. It is only a ride of three hours , 
but we thought a rainy day could be better spent on our way 
to Jerusalem, especially as there was every prospect of the 
wet weather setting in for the winter. 

First, however, we went to take a look at the sights. Naz- 
areth is one of the worst specimens of a Syrian town ; it 
abounds in abominations of all kinds, and is the abiding- 
place of as dark and villainous a population as we had yet 
seen. The difference was very striking between the inhabit- 
ants of this part of the country and those about Tripoli and 
Mount Lebanon. There they seemed pastoral in their habits ; 
they were polite and affable, and had a frank and cheerful 
expression that was very pleasing. As we advanced south- 
ward from Damascus the people were of a darker complexion, 
and had a scowling and morose cast of countenance. We 
found their religious prejudices stronger as we approached 
Jerusalem, and sometimes had difficulty in obtaining lodg- 
ings in the native houses, though the magic effects of back- 
shish never failed in the end to open their doors. 

The women of Nazareth, as far as we had any opportunity 
of seeing them, are extremely beautiful. They are carefully 
masked, however, and it is only accidentally that the traveler 
can catch a glimpse of their faces. 

During the forenoon we went to the Latin convent, which 
is reputed by the monks to be built upon the spot where stood 
the house of the Virgin Mary. The chapel has some tolerable 
paintings ; incense is burnt continually on the altar, as in the 



334 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



chapels throughout Italy, and, altogether, it reminded me of the 
ordinary Italian churches. Most of the monks are Italians, 
from the Tuscan and Roman States. A school is attached to 
the convent, where the Christian children of the town are 
educated free of expense ; a medicine-shop or infirmary also 
forms a part of the establishment ; and we saw around the 
doors crowds of sick and afflicted creatures, to whom the 
monks were distributing medicines. It must be admitted, 
that whatever may be objected to these institutions through- 
out Palestine, their effect is beneficial to the poor people ; and, 
in general, the monks who occupy them are kind and humane 
to all who need their assistance. 

By noon we were on our way toward Jerusalem. Ascend- 
ing the hill on the east, I stopped in a grove of olives to make 
a sketch of the town. The weather was raw and chilling, 
and I barely had warmth enough left in my hands to take a 
rapid outline of the principal points. My companions becom- 
ing impatient, I had to spur up old Saladin, and push on to 
make up for lost time. We soon came to the high range of 
bluffs overlooking the plain of Esdraelon. The view was 
very fine as we commenced our descent. On the left loomed 
up the beautiful and moundlike outline of Mount Hermon ; in 
front, at a distance of ten or twelve miles, the barren peaks 
of Little Hermon ; and beyond, inclining to the right, the vast 
and prairie-like plain of Esdraelon, a wilderness of rich land 
covered with wild-grass and weeds, and dotted at remote in- 
tervals with the ruins of castles and villages. Our road lay 
close by the reputed Hock of the Precipitation. Dr. Robin- 
son discredits the authenticity of this as the true location, and 
believes the Rock of the Precipitation to be not far behind the 
Greek convent. He very justly argues, that an infuriate rab- 
ble would have had no object in carrying their victim so great 
a distance from the town, when there were precipices in the 
immediate vicinity quite as well adapted to their purpose. 



CHAPTER XLI. 



A GAZELLE HUNT. 



Descending by a rough and stony path, we commenced 
our march across the great plain of Esdraelon. There was 
little to relieve the monotony of this part of our journey ; 
sharp gusts of wind swept over the plain, and the only sounds 
we heard were the lowing of cattle at a distance and the rat- 
tling of the withered weeds along our path. By accident 
somebody in the party who had the gun let it off at the right 
time and killed a hawk ; and occasionally a gazelle would 
start up and bound off over the plain. On one of these oc- 
casions the excitement was so strong that it came well-nigh 
costing us more than the game would have amounted to had 
we succeeded in capturing every gazelle within a range of 
ten miles. It was the first time we Frangi had seen this 
beautiful animal in its native wilds ; and so impressed were 
we by the remembrance of the ££ gazelle-like eyes" we had 
left at home, that we agreed to capture one if we could, dead 
or alive. With this determination the tall Southerner took 
Yusefs double-barrel gun, well loaded with slugs ; the En- 
glish Captain a stick to make his horse run them down; my- 
self nothing at all, because I was not skilled in hunting ; but 
I had a penknife in my pocket, with which it was possible I 
might be called upon to bleed somebody in case of a bruise 
or fracture. Yusef had his small gun, his Allen's revolver, 
sword, daggers, knives, and other arms. Thus equipped for 
the chase, we rode along keeping a sharp look-out among the 
weeds on each side of the path. It was an anxious time, for 
every moment we expected to see a fine herd of gazelles 
bounce up. But not the sign or shadow of a gazelle was to 



336 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



be seen for miles. Eventually our enthusiasm was cooling 
down in the chilling air, and we began to despair of seeing 
any more gazelles, when a thumping sound struck upon our 
ears. It was sudden and distinct, almost like a shock of 
galvanism. Per Baccho ! what a glorious sight ! Four 
splendid gazelles, not fifty yards off, in the act of bounding 
away ! Shoot 'em ! Catch 'em ! Stop 'em, somebody ! G 
Jupiter ! what splendid animals ! There was a sudden pause, 
and then a shout of excitement from the whole party, and away 
dashed every body, shouting at the utmost power of his lungs, 
and shooting to the extreme extent of his powder and fire-arms. 
The mules, heavily laden as they were with baggage and the 
additional weight of the muleteers who were asleep on top, 
pricked up their ears and began to caper about, till, no longer 
able to control their enthusiasm, they started off to join the 
chase. The muleteers were thrown from the baggage, and 
were suddenly waked up by finding themselves on their 
heads ; when jumping to their feet they ran after the mules 
as fast as they could, shouting at the top of their voices, like 
the rest of us. It is not to be supposed that Tokina, the ass, 
was proof against all this. At the very first intimation of a 
general stampede, he dropped down on his head, and deposited 
Francesco, the boy, in a mud-hole, and then springing up 
again, ran off toward Nazareth with his tail straight out, his 
ears pointed forward, and his mouth wide open, braying in 
the most hysterical and frightful manner. Thereupon Fran- 
cesco likewise started off at full speed, shouting madly for 
somebody to stop the ass ; so that there was not a single living 
object in the party, two-legged or four-legged, that was not 
chasing something. It was a general chase all round, of the 
most exciting character, for which it must be admitted some 
of us were altogether unprepared. The mules evidently were 
not in a proper condition to undertake a rapid and tortuous 
run of this kind ; for the baggage being carelessly fastened 
to their backs by means of various small cords, soon began to 
slip off on either side, and to hang dangling underneath in a 
way that was not only inconvenient to the mules themselves, 
but extremely perilous to our cooking utensils and stock of 



A GAZELLE HUNT. 



provisions. One mule especially labored under an unusual 
combination of disadvantages. Yusef had purchased several 
chickens in Nazareth, of which he designed making a stew- 
that evening, and in order to keep them fresh he had tied 
their legs together and fastened them in a live state on the 
top of the cooking utensils. The pans and kettles, sliding 
down on each side of the mule, remained hanging by the 
handles underneath, and banged away there against each 
other in the most terrific manner ; and the chickens, having 
nothing to balance them on top, slipped over behind, and 
hung between his hind-legs, where they got up such a cack- 
ling and fluttering that the unfortunate animal, driven to 
distraction by the noise and other causes, went perfectly in- 
sane with fright, and ran all round in a circle for ten minutes, 
by which time every cord was broken, and our entire stock 
of provisions and implements of domestic economy deposited 
at intervals over nearly a hundred acres of ground. The other 
mules had knapsacks, mattresses, bundles of clothes, and a 
variety of other articles hanging over them and under them ; 
but by dint of hard/ kicking, and an occasional fit of rolling., 
they got rid of them at last, and went their way at random. 
Meantime the horses branched off in different directions, and 
made the most frantic efforts to overtake the game. The 
horse of the English Captain, though equal in spirit to any in 
the party, seemed least likely to accomplish the general ob- 
ject, on account of some peculiarity in the construction of one 
of his fore-legs, the chief tendon of which had been growing 
shorter and shorter every day from the time of leaving Beirut, 
and was now so short that he was forced to do all his running 
on three legs. The animal upon which the tall Southerner 
was mounted was a slender little iron-gray which also had a 
very remarkable peculiarity. It was the misfortune of this 
horse to be possessed of a body that tapered off tow r ard the 
hind part without the slightest symptom of a stomach. No 
matter how much corn or barley he ate of nights, or how 
tight the saddle-girths were drawn in the morning, he was 
always so deficient in stomach, that in two hours from the 
time of starting, the girths invariably reached his hind-legs, 

F 



338 



a "crusade in the east. 



and the saddle occupied the space directly over his tail. It 
was in this condition that he was compelled to make chase 
after the gazelles. The legs of the tall Southerner were 
somewhat long for so small a horse, and having no natural 
support from the saddle, on account of its position, he was 
forced to tie them in a hasty knot underneath, by which 
means a constant spurring and goading was kept up, and an 
irregularity of motion on the part of both horse and rider ex- 
tremely curious and picturesque at the distance of half a mile. 
Yusef 's famous steed of the desert, Syed Sulemin, was perhaps 
the only animal in the party that could be said to keep the 
run of the gazelles, but he kept it at so great a distance that 
they must have been entirely out of sight when the firing com- 
menced. The last I saw of Syed Sulemin and his master they 
were rapidly disappearing in a cloud of smoke ; and it was 
not until the chase was entirely over that I began to entertain 
the most remote idea of ever beholding them again. "While 
all this was going on, it is not to be inferred, from the mi- 
nuteness of the details into which I have entered, that my 
horse Saladin stood still in order to afford me an opportunity 
of noting down all these facts ; for such was not the case ; so 
far from it, indeed, that he had been tied by the hind-legs 
with a thick rope to a stake, and his fore-legs bound together 
with a strong chain, and his tail fastened in some way to a 
heavy wagon, I am certain he would have carried them all 
with him sooner than be left behind. What I saw was at a 
single glance, but the whole thing was of an unusual and im- 
pressive nature, which enables me to recall the details with- 
out difficulty. That Saladin was bound to be in chase of 
something was a self-evident proposition. He was not an 
animal mentally or physically calculated to stand still when 
there was any prevailing excitement. In the present case, 
however, he made a mistake at the very beginning which was 
the chief cause of all the misfortunes that befell the mules. 
These animals, as ill luck would have it, were some two or 
three hundred yards ahead of us, a little to the left of the 
path, when the stampede commenced. Saladin, entirely in- 
different as to what he was running after, provided he over- 



A GAZELLE HUNT. 



33S 



took something, started off briskly at the very first shout ; and 
having but one eye, which was the left eye, it happened that 
he caught sight of the mules just as they became fired with 
ambition to join the chase. I have no doubt whatever that 
he thought they were legitimate game, and that the grand 
object to be achieved was to run them down and then run 
over them. Such small game as gazelles probably never oc- 
cupied the attention of so great a head as his. At all events, 
no sooner did he catch sight of the scampering mules, than 
he neighed as if ready to burst with impatience ; and, tossing 
up his head and tail simultaneously, dashed after them full 
speed. All his previous efforts in the way of running seemed 
ridiculously tame, compared with the prodigious bounds which 
he made on this occasion. Accustomed as I had in some 
measure become to his fits of insanity, this so far surpassed 
any derangement under which he had hitherto labored, that 
I was forced to let him have his way, and confine my ener- 
gies to keeping myself in the saddle. The mules, startled at the 
clatter of the baggage about their legs, and panic-stricken at 
the thundering of hoofs behind them, tried hard to head off ; 
but Saladin kept his left eye on them and never ceased to 
head off after them, till every one in the train was running 
round in a circle at the utmost extremity of his speed. No 
equestrian corps in a circus could have presented half so ex- 
traordinary a spectacle. It was utterly in vain that the mule- 
teers kept running round inside the ring, calling upon me 
in the name of Allah to give over running their mules down in 
that way, and swearing by every hair in the beard of the 
Prophet that if I kept it up much longer the poor animals 
would drop dead on the spot ; for Saladin, driven to the very 
climax of enthusiasm by the noise of the tin pans and the 
screaming of the chickens, rushed furiously after the mule 
upon which they were hung, and never left off biting him 
until the unfortunate beast was entirely rid of his load and 
crazed beyond all hope of recovery. By this time the rest of 
the party began to gather in, and by their united assistance 
both Saladin and the mules were stopped. In the course of 
half an hour we gathered in the scattered remnants of our 



340 



A CflUSADE IN THE EAST. 



baggage and went our way, greatly dejected in spirits. "We 
never saw either the chickens or gazelles again. 

The unhappy issue of this adventure had a very depressing 
effect upon the whole party. We had lost a good deal of time, 
as well as chickens and cooking utensils ; and, from all we 
could ascertain in regard to the prospect of getting any thing 
to eat at Djenin. or any reliable means of cooking what we 
might get, it was a very doubtful prospect indeed. There 
was every reason to apprehend that we should be compelled 
to go to bed siipperless ; which was by no means a pleasing 
view of the case, considering the exercise we had taken in 
our hunt after the gazelles. In consequence of this state of 
feeling, there was very little said on the subject by any body, 
except the muleteers, who, for as much as half-an-hour, did 
nothing but beat the unfortunate mules, in the hope of obtain- 
ing the satisfaction in that way which was properly due them 
by Saladin. But, as well as I could catch the drift of their 
conversation, both from the way in which they looked at me, 
and the violent manner in which they belabored the poor an- 
imals when they saw that I was composed under the circum- 
stances, there was not the slightest doubt, on my part, that 
their resentment was directed against myself, as the chief 
cause of all the trouble, rather than against either Saladin or 
the mules ; and that being denied the privilege of relieving 
their minds upon a Howadji, they relieved them upon their 
own personal property. 

As for Saladin, I regret to say, that he did not evince such 
a spirit of resignation as I expected from a horse of his great- 
ness of character, especially from a descendant of the renowned 
Ashrik. From the moment of being stopped in his attempt 
to get a piece out of the mule, which he had driven mad, he 
fretted and chafed in an unusual manner, as if under the in- 
fluence of some fierce and insatiate passion for flesh, which 
could only be appeased by a large mouthful out of some ani- 
mal in the party. 

The English Captain was the first to break the silence by 
any direct reference to the affair of the gazelles. He said that 
it was the most stunning circumstance within his knowledge 



A GAZELLE. HUNT. 



how it was that he had missed overtaking the largest of the 
gazelles, which was the one he had in his eye all along. He 
had kept that gazelle in his eye from the very beginning, and 
was gaining on it rapidly, when it suddenly disappeared ; it 
must have perceived that it was quite useless to run away 
from him any longer, and hastily concealed itself in a hole till 
he passed by. The tali Southerner was of opinion that the 
whole difficulty was owing to the want of stomach in his iron- 
gray ; which was the cause of the saddle slipping back, so as 
to prevent him from taking good aim. He thought that had 
the saddle remained in its proper place, he could have stead- 
ied himself by the stirrups ; instead of which, it required most 
of his attention to keep his legs tied together underneath. 
However, he believed that he had wounded one of the ga- 
zelles very severely, for he saw it leap more than thirty feet 
when he fired. 

Yusef, during this conversation, lost much of his dejected 
expression of countenance ; and when the tall Southerner 
spoke of having wounded a gazelle, he was no longer able to 
suppress his enthusiasm. He declared, in the most emphatic 
manner, that he had wounded two, one of which he had no 
doubt dropped dead in five minutes after, for he had broken 
one of its hind-legs, and crippled both the fore-legs, in such a 
manner that it was utterly impossible for it to run more than 
a quarter of a mile farther. The other was not so badly 
wounded, having only lost its eyes by a slug (he knew that 
the eyes were destroyed by the way it ran) ; and there was 
some probability of its living, but it could never see where it 
was going. He would have gone after the dead one, and, in 
fact, did go some distance after it, but — 

Here Yusef stopped. Had he been struck with lightning 
he could not have stopped more suddenly, or more unaccount- 
ably to himself. It was well for him that he was not thrown 
headlong over his horse. The cause of the interruption was 
this : being a little too far behind to hear distinctly all he 
said, I had thoughtlessly ridden up rather near ; and precisely 
at the most interesting point (for I felt exceedingly curious to 
know why the dead gazelle w r as left running about with on 



i*42 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



broken leg and two crippled legs), the very point that mor 
required explanation, my horse Saladin, still charing under hk 
recent disappointment, seized that moment to obtain satisfac- 
tion ; and the way he obtained it was, by seizing in his teeth 
that portion of Yusef 's horse which was nearest to him. 

Now I have never said that Syed Sulemin was a cowardly 
horse : I do not say so now ; his spirit was beyond question. 
But there are times when the bravest of horses, as well as 
the bravest of mankind, are apt to betray a natural weakness 
incident to the flesh. So sudden and so exquisite was the 
torture inflicted upon Sulemin by this unprovoked attack, 
that he not only yelled in the excess of his anguish, but 
jumped at least two feet from the ground. Nor did he cease 
his convulsive throes when he lit upon the ground again ; 
but continued to rear and plunge in such a frightful manner 
that it was quite evident the pain had driven him mad. 
Every horse in the party, either from astonishment at this 
unexpected turn of affairs, or fear of consequences, began to 
rear and plunge at the same moment. The result was, that 
the horse of the English captain, having only the perfect use 
of three legs, was unable to plunge sufficiently far out of the 
way ; and Syed Sulemin in the fury of his wrath, upon dis- 
covering, as he thought, the author of the insult, gave that 
unfortunate animal a kick that sent him staggering into the 
midst of the other horses, where he was kicked again by the 
iron-gray, and afterward bitten by Saladin. It was with 
the utmost difficulty that we were enabled to restore ordei 
among the contending parties. 

When order was at length restored, we resumed our jour- 
ney ; but such was the jealousy and ill-feeling, not only be- 
tween the horses, but between the riders, each of us protesting 
that it was the fault of the others, that a general gloom pre- 
vailed in the end, and we rode on for several hours in silence 
What conclusion my companions came to, I am unable to 
say : for my own part I was determined never again to join 
in a gazelle-hunt to the latest hour of my existence. 



CHAPTER XLII. 



DJENIN. 

The great plain of Esdraelon is one of the finest tracts of 
country in the East. In its general aspect it reminded me 
of some of the vast plains in California, after the summer 
heats have withered up the grass. Some portions of the 
land seem to be rich and arable. We saw a few fields cov- 
ered with stalks of Indian corn, from which we inferred that 
this grain might be produced here in large quantities by 
proper cultivation. No part of Palestine that we had yet seen 
appeared so well calculated to sustain a large population. 
"Railroads might be run through it at a very trifling cost, and 
an easy communication opened with the seaboard. In some 
places I noticed wild cotton, which naturally suggested 
thoughts of cotton mills. Tunnels might be cut through the 
mountains to Jerusalem, and a profitable trade thus opened 
with the inhabitants of Judea ; and by removing the sands 
from the Desert the line of communication might be carried 
to Cairo, Suez, the East Indies, China, and California. The 
hot-baths of Galilee would be a p]easant place of retreat in 
the summer ; and good hotels would soon spring up through- 
out the country as the blessings of civilization progressed. I 
sounded the inhabitants on the subject of annexation, but 
they did not seem disposed to discuss the question ; in fact 
the only answer they gave me was, backshish! There seem- 
ed to be no hope at all of reclaiming the poor creatures. 

Passed during the afternoon the villages of Yafa and El 
Mazraah, mere gatherings of hovels like bee-hives, situated on 
mounds or elevations, resembling islands in the plain ; also, 
El Fuleh, a pretty looking village, picturesquely situated in 
a sort of oasis on the left. Stopped to refresh ourselves at 



344 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Mukeberteh a filthy and miserable village, inhabited by the 
most ragged and scowling set of vagabands we had yet seen. 
Saw in the distance beyond Little Hermon, the ruined castle 
of Bizan. It stands upon an elevation in the valley of Jezreel, 
which is a part of the great plain of Esdraelon. This is cel- 
ebrated in scriptural history as the spot where Saul's body 
was hanged by the Philistines, after his defeat and death 
Saw Mount Carmel on the left ; also Gilboa, noted in scriptu- 
ral history as the place where the battle took place in which 
the Israelites were defeated and Saul slain. This spot is alsc 
famous as the scene of a sanguinary battle between Saladir 
and the Crusaders. 

Late in the afternoon, after a ride of six hours from Naz- 
areth, we arrived at Djenin, the ancient Ginea, a town of con- 
siderable size, handsomely situated at the base of a range of 
mountains on the south side of the plain. 

We found it somewhat difficult to obtain lodgings here, in 
consequence of the hostile feeling of the inhabitants toward 
Christian travelers. Djenin is one of those places occasionally 
found in Palestine where this religious intolerance has been 
in full force for centuries, and still remains unchanged, not- 
withstanding the progress of a more liberal and enlightened 
state of feeling throughout Syria and the East. A few days 
before our arrival two English travelers, who had encamped 
outside the town in their tent, were beset during the night 
by a heavy storm, which blew down their tent. It was so 
dark and cold, and the rain poured down so heavily, that they 
were obliged to give up all hope of erecting it again, and they 
proceeded to the town with their dragoman, to try and find 
shelter till morning. For some time they walked about 
through the dark and filthy streets, applying for lodgings at 
every door, but as soon as it was found that they were Franks 
they were driven away with abusive and insulting language 
and sometimes threatened with violence if they did not at 
once get^ away out of the town. Wet and cold as it was. 
they were forced to return to their wreck of a tent, pack up 
their baggage as well as they could in the dark, and proceed 
on their journey in the midst of the storm. 



DJENIN. 



345 



Our own experience in Djenin was not quite so bad as this, 
though bad enough. Upon entering the town we rode up tc 
a fountain, where we waited nearly an hour, while our drag 
oman went in search of some lodging-place. He had a niece 
here whose husband was a Christian ; but he feared they 
were not at home, having heard that they were on a visit to 
Jerusalem. While we were waiting at the fountain, a great 
many ragged children and women came to get water and 
stare at us ; and before long, a number of cadaverous and 
thievish-looking men began to gather around us, smoking 
their pipes, and remarking upon all our peculiarities of cos- 
tume and manners. It was a great comfort- to think that we 
had near us the means of striking terror into the hearts of 
these lazy vagabonds, in case they should undertake to treat 
us with any sort of disrespect. In all truthfulness, they were 
the most squalid, miserable, scowling set of villains it was 
ever my fortune to behold ; ragged to the very extremity of 
raggedness ; dirty to the foundation of dirtiness ; smoked and 
smoky to the essence of smokiness ; and beastly in all respects 
to the lowest pitch of beastliness. 

Yusef returned in due time, bringing tidings that his niece 
had really gone to Jerusalem; bat that he had, after .great 
difficulty, obtained lodgings for us at the house of a Christian 
Arab from Nazareth. 

Djenin afforded us a fair example of the extent to which 
mental and physical persecution may be carried without abso- 
lutely producing insanity. Expecting every moment to be 
robbed by the natives, wdio are the worst in all Palestine, we s 
lay in the hut of a Christian Arab, where we were literally 
in danger of being devoured by asses, cows, goats, and smaller 
animals, such as cats, dogs, rats, and lizards, as well as by the 
vermin, which completely obliterated all my remembrances of 
South America and California. Never before had I been con- 
quered by annoyances of this kind ; I had always slept through 
them, and laughed at my companions next morning for being 
troubled about such trifles. But, Lamartine ! Lamartine ! 
if thou hast tears to shed — and I know thou hast yet a few 
more left — in the name of humanity, shed them now ! It wag 



346 



A CUUSADE IN THE EAST. 



pitiable to behold us ; it was more than pitiable— actually 
heart-rending. To this day I can not think of that miserable 
little town and the night we spent there without an itching to 
get farther away from it. In the middle of the night, after 
tossing, rolling, and groaning, without even so much as a wink 
of sleep — for the fleas actually covered me as a live coating of 
black mail — I started up and looked around in search of sym- 
pathy. The tall Southerner was sitting up on the mud floor, 
his hair disheveled, his eyes wild and and haggard, and his 
face dreadfully scarred and emaciated ; he was in the act of 
aiming a blow, with an empty bottle, at the head of some 
hungry animal that had been trying to eat him. The En- 
glish Captain, jolly as ever, was scratching himself with one 
hand, while with the other he held a pipe, which he smoked 
with great calmness and good-humor. 

" Hallo !" said I, " what's the matter, Captain ?" 

" The fleas," said the Captain ; " they're quite stunning, I 
assure you. Never saw so many in all my life." 

"Why don't you catch 'em ?" 

" Too strong for me ; can't hold 'em. Ton my honor, they 
won't let me sleep a wink. Awfully ferocious animals ; stun- 
ning,- quite stunning, I assure you. Sir, I don't think any 
thing short of hot brandy-punch will cure them." 

The proposition was so gratifying that we all immediately 
agreed to it. Francesco and Yusef were aroused, and com- 
manded to produce fire and water in ten minutes, on the pain 
of our displeasure. Very soon we felt quite happy, in spite of 
the vermin — happier, a good deal, than we did next morning. 

I have looked in vain for a scientific description of the Syr- 
ian flea. Surely it deserves a place in natural history : and, 
although unskilled in entomology, I shall here notice briefly 
this extraordinary animal. The Pulce granda, or Syrian flea, 
is of a lively disposition and irregular in his habits, given to 
late hours and disturbances of the peace. He sleeps occasion- 
ally during the day, but is always wide awake at night, when 
his vivacity is very remarkable. Human blood is his food ; 
he prefers Christians to Arabs as an article of diet ; has great 
vigor of muscle and capacity for digestion ; carries in his mouth 



DJENIN. 



347 



a long harpoon, which he throws with great skill ; uses like- 
wise a boarding-knife and patent forcing-pump. He never 
dies naturally, but is subject to diseases of the brain, from too 
great a flow of blood to the head. Wounds produced by this 
ferocious animal are unpleasant, but not fatal. Constant de- 
pletion, however, may destoy life ; hence, by repeated attacks, 
a man may be altogether dried up ; in which case he becomes 
a dry subject. One should always, when he feels the harpoon 
thrown into him, seize hold of the flea by the hind-legs, tear 
him out by main force, and deposit him secretly upon his 
neighbor. I always did so, as nearly as practicable, upon the 
English Captain or the Southerner. Sometimes I dropped 
him into their ears, so that they might have odd dreams to 
tell when they waked up. 

"We had fleas all through Syria ; we were flayed by fleas 
from Beirut to Jerusalem. They are the living embodiment 
of the nights in Palestine, which are now the nearest approx- 
imation to the knights of Jerusalem. 

In the morning, after a hurried breakfast, I went to take 
another look at the town. The weather was wet and gloomy, 
and nothing could exceed the comfortless and melancholy as- 
pect of the whole place : the narrow streets, half- filled with 
ruins and piles of filth ; dead carcasses sopping in green pools 
of mud ; the dark alleys reeking with a sickening stench ; the 
walls of the houses blackened with smoke, and tottering to 
ruin ; a few half-naked wretches, scarce bearing the semblance 
of human creatures, wallowing about the doorways amid the 
foul abominations ; stagnation, decay, ruin every where — the 
earth polluted, the air accursed, the very dogs sneaking into 
darkness, as if to hide their degradation. 

We were glad enough to take our leave of so unpleasant and 
inhospitable a place. It rained hard all the forenoon, and oar 
ride was uncommonly dreary. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



ADVENTURE WITH THE SAMARITANS. 

"Within three miles of Djenin we passed the spot where the 
attack was made by the Arabs upon Mr. Alwynn. It was a 
lonesone and desolate valley, between two ranges of barren 
mountains, and seemed a fit abode for banditti. Keeping a 
sharp look out, however, on both sides, and occasionally be- 
hind, we were determined to seize at once upon any bad char- 
acters whom we might discover prowling about, and hang 
them up to the first tree on the roadside ; but they must have 
suspected from our general appearance and the efficient man- 
ner in which we were guarded, that we were people not to 
be trifled with, for we saw nothing of them. 

In about two hours we reached Kubatayeh, a village inhab- 
ited chiefly by a population of Turks. Soon after, we came 
to a mountain pass, from which we had a fine view of the 
rich plain below. The village of Sanean on the opposite 
side is prettily situated on an eminence, and is surrounded by 
ruinous walls and the remains of an old castle, which any 
person who has the time to spare may find worth looking at. 
On the left, two hours farther on, is the village of Jeba, a pic- 
turesque collection of ruins embosomed in olive groves. This 
part of the country abounds in groves of fig-trees and olives, 
and we saw a number of Arabs plowing in the fields, very 
much as the fields must have been plowed three thousand 
years ago. What would a farmer think at home, in this the 
nineteenth century, to see the ground rooted up with a fork- 
ed branch of a tree, with a pair of oxen fastened to it by a 
string ? 

At Jeba, we diverged from the main road, sending on our 



ADVENTURE WITH THE 



SAMARITANS. 



349 



mules to Nablous, and took a by-road to Sebustia. From the 
summit of a mountain not far from Jeba we had a fine pros- 
pect of the valleys on both sides, with their flowing streams 
bordered with* green shrubbery. The mountains were ter- 
raced in every direction, and fig-orchards and vineyards flour- 
ished luxuriantly on all the arable grounds. In the distance 
gleamed the bright waters of the Mediterranean — the most 
welcome sight we had enjoyed from the time of leaving the 
cedars of Lebanon. It is wonderful how the heart is glad- 
dened by a glimpse of a familiar object, after one has been 
shut in for some time among strange scenes. I really felt as 
if I could hug old ocean, when I beheld his honest face shin- 
ing in the sunbeams. 

On our descent from the ridge, we passed through Burka, 
where we were stared at by the inhabitants with vacant 
wonder; and some distance below we crossed a deep valley 
and ascended on the other side a mound-like hill, upon which 
was situated in ancient times Samaria, the capital of the Is- 
raelites. Nothing now is left of the ancient city but broken 
columns and cornices, scattered throughout the fields on the 
hill-sides, some of which are partially imbedded in the ground ; 
and a double row of columns, said to have formed a portion 
of a temple built by Tiberius. The whole site of Samaria, 
covering several hundred acres of ground, now rudely culti- 
vated, is strewn with these relics of the ancient city. One 
of the most picturesque objects to be seen there, is a ruined 
mosque, built perhaps during the time of the Saracens. The 
view in every direction is very fine ; and the position of the 
old city must have been one of the most charming in Syria 
for salubrity, convenience, and scenic effect. Of the present 
town of Sebustia, little need be said. A description of one 
Syrian village, answers with little variation for all the rest ; 
low square huts, with flat tops ; a lazy, beggarly population 
of picturesque Arabs, are the principal features in all these 
villages. The inhabitants of Sebustia seemed to be still more 
rude and debased than any we had yet seen in our wander- 
ings, probably from being farther removed from the ordinary 
traveled route. Some had a brutish and idiotic appearance. 



350 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



We sat down by the ruins of the old mosque, and spread 
our table-cloth and provisions on a stone, and while we ate 
our lunch, the natives began to gather round us in large 
numbers, and stare at us with undisguised astonishment. 
Yusef was very much disgusted with their rudeness, and gave 
vent to his displeasure in English, which struck us as some- 
what remarkable, inasmuch as it was not to be supposed that 
these poor wretches were learned in that tongue. The num- 
ber increasing, we began to think they meditated a descent 
upon our chicken, and I assumed the responsibility of telling 
Yusef that he had better drive them away. He looked em- 
barrassed and distressed (doubtless he felt humiliated by their 
want of manners), but mustering up his usual spirit, he ad- 
dressed them in Arabic, and they all talked together with 
great violence for some time. At last I saw that the Arabs 
were getting very forward and excited, and our dragoman 
very pale. I knew that Yusef was going to be furious, and 
that the next thing would be a general fight, which, consid- 
ering the odds against us, I was rather anxious to avoid. 
With this view, I told him to let them alone, and by no means 
to attack them. At the same time, in order to appease their 
ferocity, I threw them the bones of a chicken which I was 
picking and some crusts of brown bread, which I told them 
in good English was the best I could do for them, as I was 
very hungry, and had eaten most of the provisions. Instead 
of being thankful for small favors, they became perfectly in- 
sensed at this, and asked Yusef, as he declared himself, if I 
meant to say that they were dogs. I have reason to suspect 
that he denied the charge most emphatically ; for after a 
jreat deal of exciting talk, he picked up the chicken-bones 
and the bread, and in their presence, devoured both the one 
and the other with amazing avidity. No sooner had he done 
this (and I was certain it was not from hunger), than his 
jaw T s began to chatter, and he said : " Gentlemen, we had 
better go on. It w 7 ill take us till night to reach Nablous 
and at the same time he pulled out his purse and distributed 
a large amount of backshish among the crowd ; caught up 
the remnants of our lunch and thrust them into a bag, which 



ADVENTURE WITH THE SAMARITANS 



351 



he cast over his saddle, then mounted Syed Sulemin, dashed 
spurs into the sides of that noble animal, and led the way 
down the hill with uncommon celerity. My friends and 
myself mounted as fast as we could ; for to tell the truth we 
did not altogether like the appearance of these modern Sa- 
maritans, and we departed in the rear of Yusef with a very 
ticklish sensation about the backs, as if it would be unpleas- 
ant to be peppered with slugs out of the long guns, with 
which some of the Arabs were armed. It took us at least 
half an hour to catch up with him; and he then told us that 
we had made a most fortunate escape ; that the rascally beg- 
gars at Sebustia had threatened to insult us, and that he 
(Yusef) had told them that if they did so he would not only 
cut their throats from ear to ear. but raze their village to the 
ground ; in which event we might possibly find ourselves in 
difficulty with the Turkish Government upon our arrival in 
Jerusalem. This was the reason that he had compromised 
the matter — had he been alone he would never have rested 
content without their blood, but taking our interests into con- 
sideration, he had refrained from making an attack, and had 
ridden away hastily lest he should be provoked into it by their 
demonstrations of hostility. We were very glad that the ad- 
venture had turned out so well, and saw at once how pru- 
dently our dragoman had acted. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 



NABLOUS. 

We had a very pleasant ride of two hours through the val- 
ley of jNTablous. It was one of the richest and most luxuriant 
valleys we had seen in all Palestine, abounding in fine groves 
of olives, fig-trees, and thriving vineyards and gardens ; the 
grounds were fenced in with good stone walls, and we passed 
several mills, situated on the bank of a stream, which courses 
down through the middle of the valley. In the spring it must 
be a perfect little Paradise. Travelers who have passed through 
it at that season, dwell with delight upon the beauty of its 
gardens, and the abundance of rich flowers that bloom on the 
roadside. 

It was near sundown when we entered the old stone gate- 
way of Nablous. Passing through a labyrinth of narrow, ill- 
paved and filthy streets, we found comfortable lodgings at the 
house of one Asam, a Protestant Christian. Learning that Dr. 
Mendoza and the Madam had arrived on the previous day, I 
lost no time in finding them out. They had procured tolera- 
bly good quarters not far from the house of Asam ; and when 
I was ushered up the stone stairway, I had the pleasure of 
beholding them in all their glory, seated at a table, and glow- 
ing radiantly in the fumes of coffee and omelette. The Doc- 
tor's head was buried in a red night-cap ; his face was of the 
purest olive color, and he bore evidence of having suffered the 
most intense physical privations. The Madam wore a large 
hat, about as broad in the brim as an umbrella, in order to 
preserve her complexion, which was already rather dark ; and 
I saw with distress that her amiable features were dreadfully 
lacerated by the attacks of vermin. However, she smiled as 



NAB LOUS. 



353 



sweetly as ever, and met me with her accustomed politeness 
and cordiality ; and the doctor, although rather depressed in 
mind, became eloquent very soon on the subject of the accom- 
modations of Palestine. 

" 'Tis a 'orrible country," said he ; "I no want to voyage 
here again. De ruin are interess, but the hotel not good. 
Very bad hotel. I shall be content to arrive in Jerusalem. 
De Madam are a little indispose ; but he shall be better when 
he arrive in Jerusalem. Sit down ; take some coffee. Mon 
Dieu ! very bad country dis. To-morrow we shall depart on 
our voyage. 'Tis imposs to remain longer in Nablous." 

We had some further conversation as we sipped our coffee, 
relative to the inconveniences and discomforts of Syrian travel ; 
and it was a great source of pleasure to both parties to find 
that we had all endured the most intense physical tortures 
from the time of our departure from Damascus. 

It rained hard all night. In the morning, it cleared away, 
and we went out to explore the town. Nablous, called in 
Scriptural times Sychar, is a town of considerable import- 
ance, with a population of about eight thousand — chiefly Jews, 
Christians, and Turks. There are some good stone buildings 
in the principal streets ; and it has some pretensions to ba- 
zaars. It is well supplied with fruits and vegetables from the 
neighboring gardens, and oranges are brought up in large 
quantities from Jaffa. The streets are rendered rather more 
convenient for walking than those of most towns we had seen, 
by means of a deep pathway cut in the centre for camels and 
mules. 

On the left, as we faced toward the Jerusalem road, is Mt. 
Ebal ; on the right, Gezeroum, on which is situated the syn- 
agogue of Samaria. Ebal is barren and rocky ; Gezeroum, 
also rocky, but cultivated to some extent. We visited the 
Samarians, a sect claiming to have no relationship with any 
living tribe, and whose family records, it is said, extend back 
more than three thousand years. They are much like the rest 
of the population of JSTablous, in physiognomy and dress ; the 
number now living is about a hundred and fifty. 



CHAPTER XLV. 



A STRIKING SCENE. 

On leaving Nablous we visited Jacob's well, where Christ 
gave the waters of life to the Samaritan woman. The situa- 
tion of the well accords with scriptural history, and there is 
very little doubt as to its great antiquity. It is dug in the 
solid rock. A large stone covers the mouth ; and this is all 
that now marks the spot. 

"VYe also visited the reputed site of Joseph's tomb. A rude 
stone building covers the pretended sepulchre ; but the best 
authorities deny that there is any evidence that Joseph was 
buried here. 

The road, as we struck off to the right toward Jerusalem, 
passes over a mountainous and unpromising country. Some 
fertile valleys are seen at distant intervals ; but for the most 
part the face of the country is barren and rocky. Leaving 
Kubelan to the left, we stopped to rest at the picturesque 
ruins of a Khan, in sight of El Lubban, in the valley of Lub- 
ban. This valley is cultivated and fertile ; and we saw in 
it many thriving groves of olives. Ascending a precipitous 
mountain beyond the Khan of Lubban, we had a fine view 
from the summit, of the strange old village of Singil, which 
for scenic effect can scarcely be surpassed hi Palestine. In 
about an hour we reached the stair-like road of stones leading 
up into it. Singil is a curiosity. Situated on a pyramid of 
rocks, it bears the appearance at a short distance of one mass 
of ruins ; and indeed it is little better upon a nearer approach. 
The entire village is in the last stage of decay. As we 
climbed up the barren and rugged road, and entered the 
mass of ruined walls, we were struck with wonder at the 



A STRIKING SCENE. 



3oo 



wretched appearance of the hovels on either side. Some of 
them are built of mud and straw, in the shape of bee-hives, 
scarcely ten feet in diameter, and only five or six in height. 
In these miserable dens of filth whole families of men, wo- 
men, and children were living like so many pigs, and quite 
as dirty. 

We found rather good quarters in the ruins of an old Khan, 
among goats, chickens, and smaller nuisances ; all of which 
we endured with great resignation after our experience in 
Djenin. 

At an early hour in the morning we took our leave of Sin- 
gil, and from the top. of the mountain saw the sun rise in his 
most inspiring style, gilding the mountain peaks in the vast 
circle around with all the radiant glory of his rays. Stop- 
ping awhile at Ain-el-Haramayeh, we enjoyed a sight less 
grand, but scarcely less striking. It was washing-day with 
the women of the village. About three-score of leathern- 
faced and skinny old hags were standing up to their knees in 
water at the foot of the fountain, scolding one another, or 
more probably (as I took it) abusing their husbands ; and 
pounding their husband's breeches with great clubs, as if 
nothing would please them better than to be pounding legs 
in them at the same time. I saw one ferocious old hag take 
up a ragged shirt, wring it maliciously by the neck, then 
place it on a flat stone, and mash it into a shapeless mass by 
the desperate and malignant blows that she gave it with her 
club. I was really very glad that her husband was not in- 
side of that shirt, while she was wringing and pounding it ; 
for I should have felt called upon to expostulate with her, 
and there is no telling how such interference from a stranger 
would have been received by the excited bevy of furies who 
were flourishing their clubs all around. The probability is 
that I should have been compelled in the end to seek protec- 
tion behind Yusef ; who by this time, however, was a long 
way off, because, as he afterward admitted, he always kept 
clear of women on wash-clay. He disliked the female sex 
every day in the year ; he disliked them on wash-day more 
than ever ; because it always brought to mind a favorite sash 



356 



A CRUSADE IX THE EAST. 



that he wort, which he gave to one of his nieces to wash 
some time ago. telling her at the same time to be careful how 
she rubbed it, as it was of very rare and delicate texture, and 
he never would wear any thing with holes in it. Now this 
niece, being of a malicious turn, like all w T omankind, took the 
sash to a neighboring fountain, and belabored it with a club 
till she pounded a small hole in one end of it ; and then she 
brought it to him, with tears in her eyes, and said : "I am 
very sorry, Uncle Yusef, but I've spoiled your sash. If you'll 
forgive me this time, 111 never do it again. You see wdiat a 
great hole there is in it !" " Yes," said Yusef, " I see there 
is ; a pretty business you've made of it. You may take it 
now and wear it on your head as a token of my displeasure ; 
when I have any more sashes to wash I'll wash them my- 
self." And so he did, to the best of my belief: for, during 
the whole journey, I never saw him give a sash to one of his 
nieces to wash, though I sometimes detected him giving them 
handkerchiefs and other nice little presents that were perfectly 
uew. 

On leaving Ain-el-Haramayeh, we passed through some 
fine valleys, abounding on both sides of the road with luxuri- 
ant groves of fig-trees. The inhabitants of this part of the 
country seemed to be more industrious and thriving than 
those living between Nazareth and Nablous. Some very 
good pieces of ground, fenced in with rough walls of stone, 
were frequently to be seen on the sides of the hills ; and it 
was pleasant to hear the songs of the native laborers who 
were engaged in sowing the grain for the crops of the coming 
season. 

Passing to the right of a dirty village called Jibia, we 
stopped awhile at Sinea and Infua, and thence continued on 
to Bireh, rather a larger and better looking village than we 
had seen since leaving Nablous. A short distance below 
Bireh is an old Khan, with a fountain near it, where we dis- 
mounted to refresh ourselves, and had the satisfaction of being 
abused for half an hour by a crowd of washerwomen, still 
more ferocious and alarming in their appearance than those 
of Haramayeh. 



A STRIKING SCE^E. 



357 



Beyond Bireh, toward Jerusalem, we entered a rocky plain 
entirely destitute of wood. This, with little change, continued 
till we began to ascend the mountains overlooking the sacred 
city. Several caravans of camels, laden with merchandise 
for the interior towns, obstructed the narrow passes in the 
rocks, and sometimes obliged us to turn back in order to 
avoid being walked over. It was very Oriental, this sort of 
thing, but not pleasant. I had a great notion to put some 
of those camels to death — especially one that walked byth 
Saladin and myself off the road, and sent us rolling down 
a steep hill, in such a dangerous way that it was a miracle 
our necks were not broken. 

The camel is an oddity in his way. He looks very well in 
a picture or on a desert standing under a palm-tree ; he looks 
well at a distance with a family of Bedouins on his back ; he 
looks well lying down by the ruins of an old mosque ; in an 
artistical point of view, he looks well almost any where ; yet 
when you come to analyze his character, and consider all the 
fine descriptions that poetical writers have given of his pa- 
tience, his gentleness, his powers of endurance, his admirable 
physical construction, and all that, I am rather disposed to 
regard him in the light of a humbug ; and I take the more 
satisfaction in expressing this opinion because it has a healing- 
influence upon the bruises that I received when Saladin and 
myself were rolled down the hill. As to his gentleness, he is 
gentle from pure laziness. He can be vicious enough at times. 
Let any body who would test the mild spirit of the camel, 
place his fingers between the teeth of that gentle animal, at 
certain periods, when he has been fretted, and there will soon 
be no further room for doubt on the subject. The camel is 
gentle, when he is not savage ; patient, when he is not im- 
patient ; affectionate, when he wants something to eat ; docile, 
when he is taught to understand that the absence of docility 
is usually filled with a stick. As to his physical strength 
and powers of endurance : Can he jump as far as a flea ? 
can he carry as heavy a load on his back ; can he endure 
half the amount of heat or cold ? I mean in proportion to 
his fize. Let any body who admires the beauty of the came 1 



358 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



stand behind one and see him go down a hill ; cast a look at 
his feet and legs ; and ask himself, Is that beautiful ? is that 
picturesque ? is that graceful ? and he will see how ridiculous 
the idea is, and what an awkward, ungainly, absurd animal 
the camel is. I hold that Tokina, the Prince of Asses, has 
more beauty in his person and more sense in that long head 
of his, than all the camels in Syria. I am perfectly satisfied 
with my experience in camels. Once, during a sojourn in 
Zanzibar, I mounted a camel, and was thrown over his head 
before I had traveled ten paces. On another occasion, as I 
was walking by the sea-shore one morning, three frisky old 
camels, by way of a frolic, ran after me. I was rather brisk 
at running — especially when three large animals with whose 
habits I was not familiar were after me — and I gave them a 
very fair race of it for as much as a mile, and probably might 
have made them run a mile or two more, had I not ran into 
some quick-sand. The camels ran all round the quick-sand 
twice or three times, and then went away about their busi- 
ness, which was more than I did, for I was up to my arm-pits 
in the sand by that time ; and I remained there perfectly 
satisfied that I was gaining on them up to that period, and 
that I would eventually have beaten them had I retained the 
free use of my legs. I was not satisfied, however, with the 
way I was going then, so I shouted to some Arabs who chanced 
to be near, and they pulled me out. Ever since that period 
I have been prejudiced against camels, nor has that prejudice 
been removed by my experience in Syria. I would recom- 
mend all camels in future to keep clear of any body that looks 
like a General in the Bobtail Militia, 



CHAPTER XLVL 



JERUSALEM. 

From a mountain-pass above the plain beyond Bireh, we 
rode out on a wide waste of whitish rocks, and beheld in 
the distance a walled city, dim in the shades of the coming 
night. 




VIEW OF JERUSALEM FROM THE GROTTO OF JEREMIAH. 

"How, doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! 
how is she become a widow ! she that was great among na- 
tions, and princess among the provinces, how is she become 
tributary ! 

"She weepeth sore in the night and her tears are on her 
cheeks ; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her : 



360 



JERUSALEM. 



all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are be- 
come her enemies." 

The resident population of Jerusalem is about seventeen 
thousand ; consisting chiefly of Turks, Armenians, Arabs, 
Greeks, Italians, and Jews of all nations. It is estimated 
that the average number of pilgrims who visit the Holy City 
every year is about fifteen thousand. On particular occasions 
the influx of strangers is of course much greater. Some- 
times, when the accommodations of the city are insufficient 
for so many pilgrims, encampments are formed outside the 
walls ; and many find shelter in the Convents of Bethlehem 
and St. Saba. The uncertain tenure upon which each sect 
holds its right of worship in Jerusalem ; the mingled severity 
and laxity of the Turkish laws ; the fanatical zeal with 
which all the sects are inspired, and the bigoted hatred that 
exists between them, give rise to perpetual hostility of feel- 
ing, and often to sanguinary feuds. It is deplorable and 
melancholy to see how profaned are the precepts of Him who 
preached peace and good-will toward all men in this very 
spot ; whose voice still lingers upon Zion and the Mount of 
Olives ; to witness in their worst form envy, hatred, and mal- 
ice practiced in His name, and the outward worship of God 
where sin and wickedness reign triumphant. Perhaps upon 
the whole face of the globe there could not be found a spot 
less holy than modern Jerusalem. All the fierce bad pas- 
sions that drive men to crime are let loose here in the strug- 
gle for immortality ; all the better traits of human nature are 
buried in fanaticism ; all the teachings of wisdom and human- 
ity are violated in a brutish battle for spiritual supremacy. 

In the Holy Sepulchre the hatred between the sects is fierce 
and undying. The Greeks and Horn an Catholics, the Copts, 
Armenians, and Maronites. have each a share in it, which 
they hold by sufferance of the Turkish Government; but this 
union of proprietorship, instead of producing a corresponding 
unity of feeling, occasions bitter and constant hostility. The 
Greeks and Romans, who are the two largest sects, and in 
some sort rivals, hate each other with a ferocity unparalleled 
in the annals of religious intolerance. The less influential 



JEIIUSALEM. 



36: 



sects hate the others because of their power and repeated ag- 
gressions ; the so-called Frank Catholics hate the Copts and 
Armenians, whom they regard as mere interlopers, without 
any right to enjoy the Christian mode of worship ; all hate 
each other for some real or imaginary cause, and each in- 
dulges in the self-glorification of believing itself to be the only 
sect that can find favor in the eyes of the Creator. Such is 
the bitterness of this sectional hostility that for many years 
past it has been impossible to keep the building in a state 
of repair. The roof is dilapidated, and the rain pours in 
through the windows; yet so it remains. The Latins will 
not permit the Greeks to undertake the necessary repairs, lest 
the mere act should give an implied ascendency of power 
the Greeks refuse to give the Latins permission for the same 
reason ; the Copts and Armenians are too feeble to contend 
with the more powerful sects ; and the more powerful sects re- 
fuse to grant them any liberty which they do not already hold 
in despite of them through the Turkish Government. During 
the ceremony of the Holy Fire, which takes place once a 
year, the scenes of ferocity and violence that occur are inde- 
scribable. Religious insanity, and all the horrors of blood- 
thirsty fanaticism, destroy many of the devotees. Crimes of 
the darkest character are committed with impunity. Half- 
naked men and frantic women struggle madly through the 
crowd with live coals of fire pressed to their breasts ; bodies 
of the stabbed and maimed are dragged out dead ; the chant- 
ing of priests, the howling of the burnt, the groaning of the 
crushed, fill the thick and suffocating air ; and from the sway- 
ing mass arise dying shrieks of Immanuel ! Immanuel ! Glory 
to God ! Sickened with the disgusting and humiliating spec- 
tacle, the beholder turns away with the startling words of 
Ferdinand upon his lips — 

Hell is empty and all the devils are here. 
We were not long installed in our quarters at Signor Ste- 
phano's hotel, when we were beset by dealers in all sorts of 
relics ; crosses of pearl and olive-wood, fruit-beads from Mecca, 
ear-rings of asphaltum from the Dead Sea, polished flint and 
petrified olives from the Mount of Olives and the Garden of 

a 



362 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Grethseraane, and small trinkets, manufactured of lead, from 
the Convent of St. Seba. These relics, which are purchased 
in great quantities by the pilgrims, form an important source 
of revenue to the convents of Jerusalem. A considerable por- 
tion of the population also obtain a living by making and vend- 
ing them. The most skillful carvers of pearl are said to be the 
inhabitants of Bethlehem. Some very beautiful specimens are 
carried about by the Jewish peddlers who frequent the Frank 
quarters. The pearl is imported on the backs of camels from 
Cairo and the Isthmus of Suez. In general, the designs are 
taken from the pictures in the various convents, and, consid- 
ering the rude instruments used in executing them, and the 
prevailing ignorance of the principles of art, they are wonder- 
fully well done. I saw many that gave me a high opinion of 
the natural ingenuity of the Arabs. Olive-beads and the fruit- 
beads of Mecca and Bethlehem are hung up for sale in all the 
bazaars. A few piasters will purchase quite a collection 
Enough of walking-sticks, paper-cutters, and snuff-boxes, pur 
porting to be cut from the ancient olive-trees in the Garden of 
Gethsemane, are sold annually to freight a ship. It is rare to 
find any thing in the way of a relic that can really be traced 
to the original olives ; for, being only eight in number, walled 
round and well-guarded, no portion of them can be taken with- 
out permission from the guardians, who are careful not to de- 
stroy a very profitable source of income by destroying the trees. 
For a few piasters, however, a good deal can be done even in 
the Garden of Gethsemane ; twigs and leaves and pieces of 
roots can be bought by a little persuasion, and a little more 
backshish to overcome any lingering scruples of conscience on 
the part of the custodians. Wicked as it was to do it, I thought 
so much of my friends at home, that I violated my own con- 
science and that of an old priest several times, in order to get 
a good supply of the sacred relics. 

Near the Golden Gate, which faces the valley of Jehosa- 
phat, stands the ruin of a Mohammedan sepulchre. I was 
greatly struck by the lonely and desolate aspect of the place ; 
and made a sketch of the ruin, including a few of the sur 
rounding objects. 



JERUSALEM. 



363 




MOHAMMEDAN SEPULCHRE. 

In my rambles about Jerusalem, I passed on several occa- 
sions through the quarter of the Lepers. Apart from the in- 
terest attached to this unfortunate class of beings (arising from 
the frequent allusion made to them in the Scriptures), there is 
much in their appearance and mode of life to attract atten- 
tion and enlist the sympathy of the stranger. Dirt and dis- 
ease go revoltingly together here ; gaunt famine stalks through 
the streets ; a constant moan of suffering swells upon the dead 
air, and sin broods darkly over the ruin it has wrought in that 
gloomy and ill-fated spot. Wasted forms sit in the doorways; 
faces covered with white scales and sightless eyes are turned 
upward ; skeleton arras, distorted and foetid with the ravages 
of leprosy, are outstretched from the foul moving mass ; and a 
low howl is heard, the howl of the stricken for alms ; alms, 
stranger, for the love of God ! alms to feed the inexorable 
destroyer ! alms to prolong this dreary and hopeless misery ! 
Look upon it. stranger, you who walk forth in all your pride 
and strength and breathe the fresh air of heaven : you who 
have never known what it is to be shunned by your fellow- 
man as a thing unclean and accursed ; you who deem your- 
self unblest with all the blessings that God has given you upon 



364 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



earth ; look upon it and learn that there is a misery beyond all 
that you have conceived in your gloomiest hours — a misery 
that can still be endured; learn that even the Leper, with 
death gnawing at his vitals and unceasing tortures in his 
blood, cast out from the society of his fellow-man, forbidden to 
touch in friendship or affection the hand of the untainted, still 
struggles for life, and deems each hour precious that keeps him 
from the grave. 

The quarter of the Lepers is a sad and impressive place. 
By the laws of the land, which have existed from scriptural 
times, they are isolated from all contact with their fellow-men ; 
yet there seems to be no prohibition to their going out beyond 
the walls of Jerusalem, and begging by the roadside. Near 
the gate of Zion, on the way to Bethlehem, I saw many of 
them sitting on the rocks, their hideous faces uncovered, 
thrusting forth their scaly hands for alms. Their huts are 
rudely constructed of earth and stones, seldom with more 
than one apartment, and this so filthy and loathsome that it 
seemed unfit to be occupied by swine. Here they live, whole 
families together, without distinction of sex ; and their dread- 
ful malady is perpetuated from generation to generation, and 
the groans of the aged and the dying are mingled with the 
feeble wail of the young that are brought forth branded for a 
life of misery. Strange and mournful thoughts arise, in the 
contemplation of the sad condition and probable destiny of 
these ill-fated beings. Among so many, there must be some 
in whose breasts the power of true love is implanted ; love for 
woman in its purest sense, for offspring, for all the endear- 
ments of domestic life which the untainted are capable of 
feeling ; yet doomed never to exercise the affections without 
perpetuating the curse ! some, too, in whom there are hidden 
powers of mind, unknown save to themselves ; ambition that 
corrodes with unavailing aspirations ; a thirst for action that 
burns within unceasingly, yet never can be assuaged ; ajl the 
ruling passions that are implanted in man for great and noble 
purposes, never, never to give one moment's pleasure unmixed 
with the perpetual gloom of that curse which dwells in their 
blood 



JERUSALEM. 



36: 



As I plodded my way for the last time through this den of 
sickening sights, a vision of human misery was impressed upon 
my mind that time can not efface. I passed when the rays 
of the sun were cold and the light was dim ; and there came 
out from the reeking hovels leprous men, gaunt with famint, 
and they bared their hideous bodies, and howled like beasts ; 
and women held out their loathsome and accursed babes, and 
tore aw r ay the rags that covered them, and pointing to the 
shapeless mass, shrieked for alms. All w T as disease and sin 
and sorrow wherever I went ; and as I passed on, unable to 
relieve a thousandth part of the misery, moans of despair and 
howling curses followed me, and the Lepers crawled back into 
their hovels to rot in their filth and die when God willed. 



CHAPTER XLYII. 



ARAB GUARD TO THE DEAD SEA. 

A messenger from the Sheik of J ericho called upon us this 
morning to let us know that the Arab guard was ready to 
conduct us to the Dead Sea and the Jordan. He assured us 
we would have no trouble with the Bedouins with such a 
guard ; they were all terrible fellows, whom the Bedouins 
knew too well to attack ; for, praised be Allah, they had killed 
some hundreds of the rascals already, and would kill some 
hundreds more before long. It was a great source of consola- 
tion to be protected in this efficient manner ; for I must con- 
fess it was rather startling to hear the strange stories that 
were told of the way in which travelers were attacked and 
murdered, or carried off into the deserts and never heard of 
again. I expected to see twenty able-bodied men, well-drill- 
ed, and armed to the teeth, because it seemed as if it would 
require that number of men, and men of that kind, to slay so 
many Bedouins. They were down at Job's well, he said, 
waiting for us ; and meantime he would receive the two 
hundred piasters for the Sheik, and forty piasters for the men. 
The latter sum was to be devoted to the purchase of a sheep, 
and the sheep was to be roasted on the banks of the Jordan, 
and the men were to eat it. This was my understanding of 
the case when I paid my share of the forty piasters ; and I 
did it the more willingly because I was fond of sheep roasted 
in this way, and anticipated taking some part in the feast. 
But here let me record a notable fact :.the sheep is a hum- 
bug. To the best of my belief, there never was such a sheep 
killed or roasted by the Arab guard. If such a sheep be in 
existence at all, it is just as likely to die a natural death as 
the Bedouins when shot at by these same Arabs. 

Bidding good-by to our worthy comrade, the English Cap- 
tain, who had mado up his mind to return to Beirut, we passed 



THE ARAB GUARD TO THE DEAD SEA. 



367 



out of Jerusalem by the Jaffa gate, and went down to Job' swell. 
There was no guard there ; not the sign of a guard ; nothing 
but the well and two asses. So, having nothing better to do, 
we (my friend and myself, and not the asses) sat down on 
the top of the stone wall and amused ourselves throwing peb- 
bles into the well. It appeared to be very deep — perhapr 
about a hundred feet. I had no doubt at all of its antiquity. 
It looked old enough ; but whether Job had authorized the 
naming of this spot after him, or whether it was merely a 
freak of fancy on the part of the Latin monks, we could not 
tell. Historians differ so much touching the location of these 
wells and their right names, that I was always content to let 
them settle the knotty points, and thank God for the fresh 
water, when I found any. A queer, ruinous old place Job's 
well w r as, consisting of a very deep hole in the solid rock, with 
a pile of broken walls and a moss-covered dome over it, in 
the Judean style, built perhaps some few centuries ago ; for 
I believe no historian pretends that any thing but the well 
itself can be traced to scriptural times. It lies in a blanched 
and arid valley of rocks, close down by the foot of Mount Zion. 




PILGRIMS ON THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM. 



368 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



All along the road coming from Mar Saba were long lines 
of pilgrims, mostly on foot, some mounted upon camels and 
donkeys, and all wending their way to ward Jerusalem. They 
had been to the Greek convent, and were returning after the 
ceremonies. The priests wore long beards and flowing robes, 
and the common pilgrims were ragged and barefooted, and 
walked at a weary pace with their heads bowed down. I 
never saw any thing that so impressed me with the idea of 
earnest devotion. With scarce clothes enough to cover their 
nakedness, poor and friendless, many of these way-worn pil- 
grims had wandered from their far off-homes, over mountains 
and deserts, through scorching suns and drear}' wastes, to lay 
their bones near the Sacred City. 

While we were sitting upon the top of the ruin, there came 
out from among the rocks close by a ragged Arab, of most 
uncouth aspect, with a long gun hung over his shoulders and 
a rusty sword swinging by his side. An old pistol and a 
crooked knife were thrust in his sash, which was long and 
flashy, but defaced by the dirt of ages. All the colors of the 
rainbow were combined in his turban, his tawdry vestments, 
and scanty breeches, and his nose was hooked like an eagle's 
and his eyes flashed and wandered like the eyes of some wild 
beast that had been caught not long before. I declare, within 
bounds, that he was the most ferocious, unshaved, unwashed, 
and dilapidated looking vagabond I had seen in all my trav- 
els, and it was not without suspicion that I watched him as 
he approached, and a lurking fear that there were more of 
the same kind not far off. Sure enough, out came another 
pretty soon, just as if the ground had opened and let him 
through from some infernal region below ; and another soon 
after, rubbing his eyes ; and then another waking himself up 
too, all armed like the first, with long guns mounted all over 
with brass, and rusty swords, and old pistols fastened in their 
sashes, and all looking so ragged and hungry, and so much 
like genuine robbers, that I involuntarily turned to see if 
Yusef had brought his fire-arms to bear upon them. My chief 
dependence was upon Yusef for I never carried any weapon 
of defense except a penknife,, and my companion was likewise 



THE ARAB GUARD TO THE DEAD SEA. 36* 

unarmed. Besides, Yusef had a courageous and blood-thirsty 
disposition, as he repeatedly avowed, and delighted in nothing 
so much as in killing people, which I was not naturally fond 
of, apart from the risk of killing myself by carrying deadly 
weapons. I had always felt a presentiment that, if I carried 
a revolver or pistol of any kind in my pocket, it would go off 
and disable me for life ; hence I never carried any thing more 
deadly than a penknife, and that I was resolved not to use in 
the way of violence unless driven to the last extremity. 

Instead of rushing upon these fellows, however, brandishing 
his guns, pistols, and swords, as was his habit when nothing 
was in sight, Yusef greeted them with a kindly salaam, say- 
ing, "Good-morning, friends; how do you do?" to which 
they answered in the same friendly strain ; and a great many 
compliments passed, as I supposed from the flowery style of 
the conversation that ensued. Yusef passed his chibouck 
around, and they all sat down and began to talk with great 
animation and a rapidity of utterance that would have aston- 
ished me had I not become rather used to it. Even as it 
w r as, I thought some of them would certainly choke in getting 
out so many raking gutturals at once. The talk did not seem 
at all likely to come to an end short of two or three hours. 
At last I made bold to come down from the top of the wall 
and ask what they wanted. " Nothing, prince of Generals," 
said Yusef; " only to take you to the Dead Sea." c< Do you 
mean to say, thou vilest of dragomans, that this is the Arab 
guard sent here by the Sheik of Jericho to protect us against 
the Bedouins?" "I do, General! It is verily the Arab 
guard." ''For which we paid two hundred piasters, and 
forty piasters for the roast sheep ?" " Yea, the same ; verily 
the same, on my sacred honor as a dragoman ; only there 
win be another man before we reach Mar Saba." 

I looked at their guns, which were pointed in various di- 
rections ; said nothing, but secretly hoped the other man 
would not be a corpse. For you perceive the expected guard 
of twenty that were to insure our lives had been reduced to 
eleven imaginary men before we arrived at Job's well. It 
now consisted of four actual beggarly varlets. Each carried 



370 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



a long gun, as already slated, and each had a dangerous way 
of carrying it across his back, or over his shoulders, or under 
his arms ; so that there were stocks and muzzles ranging all 
round. It was utterly impossible for one of these guns to go 
off without killing somebody. As we rode on down the val- 
ley the fifth man joined us ; and when I saw that his gun 
was longer, if any thing, than the rest, and was carried so as 
to take a still wider range, I at once committed myself to 
Providence, under the conviction that if there was any shoot- 
ing to be done it would not be the Bedouins that would suffer, 
but we who rode behind the guard ; and especially I dreaded 
this result when I came to think that there might be powder 
in the pans and slugs in the barrels, and that the powder 
might take fire if the locks should once get to going. In faith, 
so impressed was I with this idea that I fully made up my 
mind to call these fellows aside the very first chance, and 
prevail upon them by a heavy backshish to discharge their 
guns at some rock or tree, and keep them unloaded until we 
were attacked by the Bedouins ; and it was my settled de- 
termination, in the event of such an attack, to join the Be- 
douin party at once, and remain on that side till the conclu- 
sion of the fight. 




THE ARAB GUARD. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 



THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN. 



Our ride to Mar Saba, notwithstanding the guns of the 
Arab guard, was devoid of any incident worth relating. 
The distance in point of time is about three hours from Jeru 
salem. The road lies mostly between two ranges of craggy 
bluffs, almost destitute of vegetation, and entirely uninhabited. 
On the left we saw the caverns in which the monks lived, 
before the general massacre by the Turks, in which some 
thousands were brutally butchered. These caves are now 
only inhabited by goats. Some of the bones and skulls of 
the murdered monks are still scattered about the rocks. The 
Wady is of a very singular geological formation, and bears 
the appearance of having at some remote period formed the 
bed of a river. I am not aware of any theory having been 
formed on the subject, but it struck me as not improbable 
that this may have been the original outlet of the Jordan, 
after passing through the Dead Sea. That a stream of water 
so deep and rapid should continually pour into so small a 
sea, and lose itself in evaporation, does not seem reasonable. 
But the question remains, where it does it go now, or how 
can it fall into the Mediterranean, if the surface of the Dead 
Sea be, as scientific explorers have determined, considerably 
below the level of any other sea into which it could flow ? 
According to the most authentic English measurement the 
depression is 1311 feet, 9 inches. Lieut. Lynch gives it at 1316 
feet, 7 inches. The subject involves some curious questions, 
but is rather too profound for a casual traveler. Having seen 
it stated, however, that a recent corps of French engineers 
have decided the depression to be much less than either of 



S72 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



these estimates (I have forgotten the exact measurement, but 
believe it is about ten or fifteen feet), may it not be that 
there is a mistake in the instruments ? that by a little more 
measuring it may be discovered that the Dead Sea is rather 
higher, if any thing, than the Mediterranean ? 

If a difference of five, ten, twenty, or fifty feet can be made 
by half a dozen corps of learned explorers, the only question 
that remains is, how many will it take to bring it up to its 
proper level, so that the water may flow out naturally, with- 
out subjecting the unlearned traveler to perplexing and un- 
profitable conjectures. 

Turning off a little from the highway, we took a walled 
road on the right, to Deir Mar Saba, and were soon in front 
of the convent gate. We had a letter of introduction from 
the patriarch of the Greek convent in Jerusalem to his brother 
of St. Saba, for which we paid about a dollar. This pre- 
caution of an introduction is deemed necessary in order to 
provide against any secret attack upon the monks. The gate 
is always kept closed, and a guard is stationed on the watch- 
tower who gives notice of the approach of strangers. Re- 
peated depredations committed upon the monks by the Be- 
douins and others, and the isolated position of the convent, 
have given rise to these precautions. Our letter was pulled 
up in a little box to a high window, and read by the patriarch ; 
after which we were let in through a small door, and led 
down a great many stone steps into the little building set 
apart for the accommodation of travelers. 

We found our quarters very clean and comfortable ; the 
fare good and the Greek patriarch very friendly and obliging. 
He showed us all the curiosities of the convent, including the 
room-full of skulls, the date-tree planted by St. Saba, the 
skull of St. Saba himself, the pictorial temple in which the 
works of that distinguished saint are duly represented on the 
walls, and numerous strange grottoes and chapels dug into 
the solid rocks. A very queer, picturesque old place is the 
Convent of St. Saba ; and any traveler who has the time can 
not better employ it than by spending a few days there, 
rambling through Us vaults and chapels, and studying the 



THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN. 37 S 

remarkable history of its founder, which is full of wild ro- 
mance. 

At an early hour in the morning, we mounted our horses, 
outside the gate, and set off with our Arab guard for the 
Dead Sea. The road is wild and desolate beyond conception 
Not a living thing was to be seen for miles on the wayside 
All around was blasted and sterile. A few sickly shrubs 
grew along the ravines, through which we passed on our 
journey. From the top of the highest mountain we beheld a 
glistening sheet of water, far down below, encircled by rocky 
heights. It was the Bah?' el Lut — the Sea of Lot. 

Winding out from a deep gorge, we came upon the plain. 
As we toiled slowly along the dried bed of a water-course, 
we saw behind the banks of earth some Arabs, armed with 
guns, but as we drew near they skulked away, and we saw 
them no more. Doubtless they were spies from Jericho, watch 
ing to see if we were accompanied by the usual guard. A 
jackall, started from his lair, fled up on a bare mound, where 
he sat licking his lips. Nothing more occurred till we arrived 
at the shores of the Dead Sea. 

We dismounted and walked down upon the beach. A 
sultry mist hung over the mountains, and the air was still 
and heavy. There was a low sad moaning from the surf, as 
it rolled over upon the long slopes of mud with its thick and 
slimy foam ; and when I dipped up a handful of it and 
swallowed it down, I was not surprised that there were no 
fish to be found there. It did seem even that a few strange 
birds that came wheeling down over it, turned away again 
out of the pestilent air. Dwarfish shrubs, gnarled and leaf- 
less, grew in the mud, back from the beach. Along toward 
the Jordan was a low morass, with dank weeds in it, and all 
around the w r eeds and rushes were stricken with the death- 
spirit, and drooped and withered, or lay rotting on the foul 
earth. Verily the ban of God is upon the land ; "it mourn- 
eth and fadeth away." 

We filled our tin cans with the bitter water ; and, upon 
returning to the mound of earth upon which our horses stood, 
baw in the distance a large party of mounted horsemen. At 



374 



A CRUSADE m THE EAST. 



first we thought they were Bedouins, and there was the most 
intense anxiety and consternation on all sides. Yusef turned 
ghastly pale, and said that the water made him sick : but no 
sooner did he catch sight of a horseman, who dashed out of 
the front ranks of the approaching party, than he set up a 
frightful yell of defiance, plunged spurs into his horse, and se: 
out furiously to meet him, and settle the thing by single combat. 
Long before the rival warriors met, they commenced firing 
their pistols and guns in the air, and when they did at last come 
together, they grappled each other by the neck, and I thought 
it was the most dreadful scene I ever witnessed to see them 
thus twisted up in a struggle of life or death. But it was 
neither a struggle of life nor of death, as we soon discovered , 
it was only a struggle of love — pure devotion of heart between 
Yusef Badra and his friend Emanuel Balthos. 

In a few moments the whole party came up, headed by 
the Catholic Bishop of Jerusalem, and a dozen priests. It 
was the party of Dr. Mendoza. Nothing could exceed the 
devotion of the Bishop, and all his followers, to the interests 
of Dr. Mendoza and the Madam. Being all of the same 
religion, there was a bond of sympathy between them from 
the first moment of their meeting in Jerusalem. They guided 
the Doctor and the Madam all about Jerusalem, showed theoi 
ail the relics of antiquity 3 gave them the best rooms in the 
convent ; never let them go out of sight a single moment ; 
attended them even to the Dead Sea, all from motives of the 
purest regard, and without even a hint at money. What 
could the Doctor do in return but make a handsome present 
-of a hundred pounds to the convent, and a little pocket-money 
to these strangers in a strange land ? 

We were all delighted at this meeting on the shores of the 
Dead Sea. No sooner had we met and shaken hands, than 
Doctor Mendoza expressed himself in ihe following maimer : 

'•Bad countree dis. Convenience for sleep in Jericho not 
orond. I have drink de water of de Dead Sea and no like. 
IV3 Madam also drink : consequent he are indispose. Wc 
shcHl proceed to Jerusalem. 'Tk imposs to exiss in dis coun 
tree. I shall be content to depart for Beirut." 



THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN. 



370 



After much pleasant conversation in the same strain, we 
shooks hands again and parted ; Doctor Mendoza and his de- 
voted followers for St. Saba, and Ave for the Jordan and Jericho. 

We rode along the beach for some miles, and then struck 
off into a morass, through which our horses plunged and stag- 
gered for some miles farther, till we reached a higher part of 
the plain and found a mule-path leading to the Jordan. Our 
Arab guard evinced the most intense anxiety as we drew 
near the boundary of the Bedouin country. As to Yusef, he 
never was more cool and collected in the absolute presence 
of the most dangerous foe. For more than an hour he 
scarcely uttered a word ; but with looks of the most profound 
indifference, reined up his steed of the desert, and rode along 
in our very midst, as if he had no further thought of the 
Bedouins than to be the central point of attack when the 
fighting commenced. 

In good time, we drew up our horses on the banks of the 
river. While our guard were busily engaged in disposing oi 
their forces on the tops of the neighboring hills, so as to be 
as far away from the Bedouin country as possible in ordei 
that they might enjoy a more extended view of it, and cut 
off all stragglers that might come in their direction, we dis- 
mounted and indulged in various reflections concerning the 
Jordan. The conclusion that I came to was this : I was 
greatly astonished to find the river Jordan no bigger than 
what we call a creek in the back-woods of America ; and 
resolved in all my future readings about rivers, lakes and 
seas in the old world, to look at them through an inverted 
imagination. I stood at the water's edge, and tossed a peb- 
ble across to the other side with ail ease. It was not more 
than thirty yards wide at most ; and although the current 
was swift, yet it was impossible to get quite rid of the idea 
that the Jordan, so famed throughout the whole civilized 
w T orld, must be somewhere farther on, and this little stream 
only one of its tributaries. "Why it was I thought so, it 
would be impossible to say ; but I certainly must admit 
that I never was so disappointed in regard to the size of a 
river in my life. 



376 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



The sheep for which we had paid the messenger of the Sheik 
of Jericho, forty piasters, was not roasted here by the Arab 
guard according to contract ; but fortunately Yusef had pro- 
vided himself with a cold leg of mutton for us in Jerusalem, 
which we devoured with amazing relish after our ride, and 
he also gave us some brown bread which he had thought- 
fully smuggled into his bag at the Convent of St. Saba, and 
which we washed down with copious draughts of water out 
of the Jordan. While we were thus sitting on a conspic- 
uous part of the bank, eating our lunch, I could not but 
think that we afforded an excellent mark for any prowling 
Bedouins that might be concealed in the bushes on the other 
side ; and on that account, as well as because of my origi- 
nal disappointment, I sincerely wished that the river was as 
wide as the Ohio. Every time I looked over into the Be- 
douin country, I expected to see a dozen guns pointed at my 
head ; and this notion became at length so unpleasant, that 
in order to divert my thoughts from so painful a view of 
the subject, I called to Yusef, who was standing behind a tree 
not far off, priming his pistols, to come and sit down opposite 
to me, and give me a detailed history of the affair with the 
six Bedouins, whom he had slain on his last journey through 
Syria. It struck me as a little singular that he did not ex- 
hibit his usual alacrity in obeying this summons, especially 
on a subject so congenial to his nature ; I therefore repeated 
it with some warmth ; upon which he reluctantly left his 
station, and seated himself close behind me, when he imme- 
diately began to give me a rapid account of this remarkable 
affair. Finding myself unable to hear him distinctly, with 
my back turned toward him, I requested him to sit opposite 
me, which he very reluctantly did. Indeed it was evident 
that something preyed upon his mind, for often as I had 
heard him repeat the story, I .never before knew him to omit 
the part where he had pinned two of the Bedouins to a tree 
with a single thrust of his sword. On this occasion, his chief 
concern seemed to be to get through as soon as possible ; and 
he frequently looked behind him to the other side of the river, 
as if he thought we might eventually be compelled to depart 



ARAB GUARD TO THE DEAD SEA. 



377 



for Jericho without even a skirmish with the rascally inhabit- 
ants of the Bedouin country. I afterward found that I was 
quite right in my suspicion as to the cause of his anxiety ; 
for he assured me, after we had mounted our horses and left 
the river some distance behind us, that such indeed was the 
case, and that he had a great mind to go back again and 
spend the night there watching for them. 

Having finished my lunch about the same time that Yusef 
got through killing the six Bedouins, I took my tin can which 
I had purchased in Jerusalem, and accompanied by my friend 
the tall Southerner, who was quietly smoking his chibouck 
most of this time, went down to the river and filled it with 
water for the benefit of some acquaintances at home. Every 
drop of that water, I intended distributing with miserly dis- 
cretion, and when I came to the last drop it was my design 
to fill the can again with fresh water out of the nearest 
pump, and still protest on my veracity, as a traveler, that 
it contained water which I had myself dipped up out of the 
Jordan. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 



A fi easant ride of three hours from the banks of the Jor- 
dan brought us to the reputed site of Jericho. Nothing re- 
mains of the ancient city, and I believe it is admitted by the 
best authorities on scriptural history, that there is no ground 
for the assumption that this was the location of Jericho. It 
is not even rendered probable by any reasonable conclusions 
from historical evidence. Without entering into that ques- 
tion, we had sufficient to do to credit our senses, when we 
were told that we were in the midst of the village, and that 
there was no other village than what we saw around us. A 
ruinous old Khan, eight or ten wigwams built of mud and 
bushes ; half a dozen lazy Arabs lying about on piles of rub- 
bish, smoking their pipes ; a few cows, sheep and goats, 
browsing on the stunted bushes; some mangy- looking dogs, 
engaged in devouring the carcass of a dead mule, and a few 
hungry crows waiting near by for a share in the feast, were 
all the signs of habitation and life that we could see about 
Jericho. The Khan stands at a distance of a few hundred 
yards from the huts or wigwams, and is said to be occupied 
at present by a Turkish guard of twenty-five soldiers, sta- 
tioned there by the Pasha of Jerusalem, to protect the people 
of Jericho from the Bedouins. We saw nothing of the sold- 
iers. Doubtless they were asleep, and the probability is that 
they had been asleep ever since their departure from Jeru- 
salem. It. appeared, from all we could learn, that in con- 
sequence of the depredations committed by the Bedouins upon 
travelers visiting the Dead Sea and Jordan, and also upon 
the Arabs, living in the villages on this side of the river, that 
the Turkish authorities of Jerusalem had agreed to furnish 



THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 



379 



the Sheiks, numbering five, with this guard for their protec- 
tion, and as an equivalent had caused them to enter into stip- 
ulations for the safe conduct of all travelers to those places, 
holding them responsible for any loss by robbery or plunder, 
and allowing them to exact a hundred piasters from each 
traveler in payment of their services. This tariff upon pil- 
grims affords the Sheiks and their dependents their princi- 
pal means of support. The guards are not very expensive; 
in point of equipment, as may be seen from the specimens 
with which we were favosed ; nor does it appear that they 
exercise any very salutary effect upon the Bedouins, since 
there appear to be quite as many robberies committed now 
as there were before this arrangement. It is essential to 
have them, nevertheless, for depending as they do chiefly 
upon Frank pilgrims for their support, they contrive when 
cheated of their profits by a refusal to take advantage of their 
protection, to do the robbing themselves ; and this being re- 
garded by the Turkish authorities as a matter between them- 
selves and the Franks, it is seldom noticed. Each of the five 
Sheiks, belonging to the different villages on the Jericho side, 
takes his turn in furnishing a guard, and receiving the emol- 
uments, so that the profits are pretty equally distributed. In 
addition to the sum of a hundred piasters to the Sheik (about 
four dollars American money), there is, as before stated, the 
further sum of forty piasters to the men, for a sheep that is 
never either killed or roasted ; which I shall always regard 
in the light of a gross imposition upon the credulity of stran 
gers. Besides this, there is there an unlimited amount of back- 
shish to be paid to the guard individually at the end of the 
journey, for taking good care of the How r adji. I paid the 
backshish without reluctance, because I felt extremely grate- 
ful in being permitted to reach Jericho without being shot 
through the head — not by the Bedouins but by the guard ; 
and I could not but feel sensible of their kindness and discre- 
tion in keeping away on the distant hills when we were down 
by the Jordan, and thereby exposing us to but one danger at 
a time — that from the guns of the Bedouins on the other side 
of the river. 



380 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



It was a mild pleasant evening as we reined up our horses 
before the palace of his highness the Sheik of Jericho. The 
sun was in the act of setting, and to do him justice he did it 
as well as ever I saw it done. The whole valley of the Jor- 
dan was steeped in a glowing atmosphere of purple ; and the 
mountains beyond the Dead Sea were admirably finished off 
on top with cities of gold made out of naked rocks and sun- 
shine ; and the Bedouin country, take it altogether, to its 
most distant point of view looked very much like a land of 
wild, undefmable beauty, and glowing romance. 

Regarding the palace of the Sheik of Jericho, of which 1 
have made mention, it was a mud hut about thirty feet in 
length, ten feet high, and roofed with a combination of bushes, 
straw, manure, mud, gravel, and old rags. It had three walls 
altogether — the back wall and the two end walls. The 
w r hole of the front part was open, or rather would have been 
open, had not the Sheik with a degree of shrewdness and in- 
genuity very characteristic of the citizens of modern Jericho, 
placed some bushes in a pile there, with an inside partition 
of the same, and formed a sort of connection between them 
and the roof by another pile on top, so that in- point of fact 
he had a front wall and porch at the same time, where he 
could sit in warm weather, and smoke the pipe of content. 
This was to be our lodging-place for the night ; it was the 
best and only lodging-place we could find. The Sheik and 
his family lived in one corner of the bush part, which was 
the part of which he seemed to be most proud ; and some cows, 
goats and chickens lived in the main or mud part. The only 
remaining part, being the other corner of the bush-work, 
which, in the absence of any tourists from foreign countries, 
was temporarily occupied by an ass, we had to wait awhile 
till the Sheik and the ass came to an understanding in regard 
to the right of possession. The Sheik in order to make room 
for us, was in favor of removing the ass to that part of the 
house which was occupied by the goats and chickens. The 
ass was in favor of staying where he was. The Sheik en- 
deavored to remove him by force. The ass being the heavier 
body, stood his ground and wouldn't be removed by force. In 



THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 



381 



vain the Sheik expostulated with him ; the ass was not to be 
humbugged in that way ; his head was too long for that ; so 
he remained doggedly where he was, and seemed to have 
made up his mind so to remain as long as he chose. At this 
crisis, the conflict of opinion in regard to the right of posses- 
sion, appearing to be direct and positive, and to admit of no 
compromise between the parties, the Sheik went up to a bag 
that hung upon a post, and took out some barley, which he 
held out in his hand as an additional argument. The ass 
looked at the barley, smelled it, found that it was good, con- 
cluded that the argument was based upon just principles, and 
quietly followed the Sheik into the goat and chicken depart- 
ment, where he was tied fast to a post, and severely flogged 
by that individual for refusing to be convinced at first. I con- 
sidered that there was a moral in the incident, and noted it 
down for future study. 

By the time we had scraped up the ass's bed, and made 
our own beds in place of it, Yusef had boi]ed some coffee, 
which was very refreshing to us after our day's journey. We 
had a good supper of stewed chicken in due time, which we 
shared with the Sheik ; and about ten o'clock, being tired, we 
turned in to sleep. In order to give a proper understanding 
of the startling adventure that befell us during the night, it will 
be necessary to go back a little, and mention that not more than 
three or four nights previously a large party of armed Bedouins 
had made a descent upon the village, and in spite of the vigil- 
ance of the Turkish guard, who were sound asleep and not to 
be wakened by the cries of the villagers, had captured and 
driven off a number of cows and sheep, and threatened to kill 
every body in the village the next time they came down. A 
similar invasion, or perhaps a worse one, was nightly ap- 
prehended ; so that the alarm was general, and all the live 
stock was driven into the houses for safe keeping. This the 
old Sheik communicated to Yusef with great coolness, consid- 
ering the danger ; but it was not so taken by Yusef. His 
eyes seemed as if they would start out of his head, when he 
was informed of this unpleasant state of things, and it was 
*ome time before he could calm himself sufficiently to give us 



382 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



any idea of the dangers that threatened us. I have no hesi 
tation in confessing that it was not a piece of intelligence cal- 
culated to make me sleep soundly. Nothing but the implicit 
confidence I had in the courage of Yusef, could have induced 
me to risk my life in such a place a single hour longer ; al- 
though it was now dark night. As soon, therefore, as he had 
interpreted for us the startling information which he had re- 
ceived from the Sheik, I came to the conclusion that our only 
hope of safety lay in Yusef. Calling him up close to where 
we were seated, I stated to him in substance that being un- 
armed, and in no way prepared to resist an attack from the 
Bedouins, I was willing, as doubtless also my friend the 
Southerner was, to yield to him the post of honor ; which was 
directly across the entrance into our quarters. 

"If it should unfortunately happen," said I, "that these 
Bedouins should make a descent upon us to-night, they will 
unquestionably come in through the first hole or doorway that 
they find open. Now as there is no door here to put in this 
gap, and no means by which we can secure ourselves for de- 
fense, the only possible chance of escape we have depends 
upon you. Arm yourself well, Yusef; load and prime your 
guns and pistols carefully ; see that your sword and knives' 
are properly disposed for action : spread your mattress di- 
rectly across the gap in front of us, and keep watch as long 
as you can. Should you fall asleep, which is not likely undei 
the circumstances, the Bedouins will no doubt wake you up, 
as soon as they step on you'. While you are grappling with 
them, my friend and myself can tear away the bush- work be- 
hind us, and make our escape. Should you survive the con- 
flict, you will overtake us in the morning on the road to Jeru- 
salem ; but should you fall, we will take care to mention all 
the facts to your family in Beirut ; and hand them over any 
funds that may be due to you." 

I can not say that Yusef took this proposition with the avid- 
ity which was to be expected from one who had been thirsting 
so long for the blood of a Bedouin. He looked confused and 
astonished at first ; then turned very pale and trembled all over ; 
and when I spoke of conveying the melancholy intelligence 



THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 



383 



to his family regarding his fate, he was more affected than I 
had ever yet seen him. All this I attribute to that remark- 
able feature in human nature which causes us, after we have 
long cherished any fond anticipation, to feel something of a 
re-action when it is likely to be realized. Seeing clearly that 
this was what affected Yusef, I laid hold of his mattress my- 
self, and fixed it across the gap in the bush-work, and told 
him not to despair ; that there was every reason to believe 
that the Bedouins would be down upon us before morning. 
I then assisted him in fixing his weapons of defense ; and all 
being arranged to my satisfaction, directed him to give the 
alarm the moment the attack was made. 

Yusef, without saying a word, lay down, and was perfectly 
quiet for about ten minutes, as if in profound thought. At 
the expiration of that time, he suddenly began to snore, which 
aroused me from a doze into which I had fallen. I instantly 
thought of his singular dream in Baalbek concerning the lion ; 
and on that account felt some doubt as to his being asleep. 
Not content with snoring, he began to mutter broken sen- 
tences, and what was a little singular, he muttered in En- 
glish, which was not his habit generally when asleep. " Poh ! 
Bedouins ! I only wish they'd come ! Cowardly rascals ! 
I'd like to see them walk over me — I'd soon kill 'em — rip — 
shoot — " and so on, till I put out the light, fell asleep myself, 
and left him thus talking to himself in the dark. My friend, 
the tall Southerner, who took things easy, generally, had 
fallen asleep some time before, and thus we slept on, and 
might have slept soundly till morning but for what followed. 

I fancy that it must have been about midnight that I was- 
aroused from a pleasant dream of home, by something like 
cold flesh lightly moved over my face. In the panic of the 
moment, I grasped at the invisible object, and, to my intense 
horror, found that it was a human hand ! Great heavens ! 
it must be a Bedouin feeling for my neck ! "A Bedouin ' 
A Bedouin !" I shouted, holding on to the struggling hand 
with all my might. "Help, Yusef! help! I've got him! 
A Bedouin, by all that's horrible !" The tall Southerner 
sprang to my assistance in a moment. It was intensely dark ; 



384 



A CRUSADE IN TEE EAST. 



by reason of which, not being able to see, he stumbled against 
the struggling man, whom he grappled by the throat, and 
we all three rolled over in a heap together. Finding it ut- 
terly impossible to distinguish friend from foe, I again called 
to Yusef for help. " Help, Yusef, help — we've got him ! 
Strike a light quick, or he'll get away I A light ! a light !" — 
It was all in vain ; there was neither an answer nor a light, 
and the dreadful thought occurred to me that this Bedouin 
had stabbed Yusef. or cut his throat, and then crept over re- 
serve my friend and myself in like manner. " Never mind," 
said the tall Southerner, coolly ; " he's all safe. I have him 
by the throat. You grope about and hud my knife, General ; 
we'll fix him presently." I can not say that I approved of 
this proposition. It was not pleasant, the idea of groping 
about in the dark, after what had happened. I might find 
something more than a knife ; perhaps I might find another 
Bedouin. The struggle that had just taken place, quite sat- 
isfied me that one Bedouin was as much as I could conven- 
iently manage. " No," said I, "you keep him down while I 
strike a light. I have a match in my pocket, if I can only 
find it. Hold on to him, if you can." It was as much as 
the tall Southerner could do to retain his grasp of the man's 
throat, who, upon hearing the word "knife," struggled like a 
maniac : but my athletic friend was too strong for him. He 
held him down with the grip of a vice. While they were 
struggling, I got the match out of my pocket, and succeeded 
in lighting it ; by which time the old Sheik and his wife, 
alarmed at the frightful noises that we made, were calling 
upon us in the most heart-rending tones to spare their fives 
The sight that met my eyes, upon holding up the match, was „ 
one that I shall never forget. Had I beheld a grizzly bear 
in the hands of my friend, or a rhinoceros, or even a seven- 
headed dragon, it might possibly have surprised me ; but I 
was completely stunned and overwhelmed with astonishment 
at the actual spectacle. There, in the extreme corner, lying 
on his back, his eyes starting from their sockets by reason of 
being choked in the iron grasp of the tall Southerner, who 
held him down by the throat, was no other than our fkithiul 



THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 



385 



dragoman and protector, Yusef Badra ! It was clear enough, 
even at a glance, why he did not come to our assistance 
when called upon at the first alarm ; it was clear enough 
why a supposed Bedouin should understand English, and 
struggle like a maniac when he heard that his throat was 
going to be cut ; it was all clear enough now, except the 
cause of this singular mistake which had well-nigh cost us 
the life and future services of Yusef Badra. I need not say 
with what astonishment the tall Southerner relaxed his grasp ; 
how Yusef sat up with, blood-shot and starting eyes, looking 
all around him, and gasping for breath ; how we immediately 
lit the lamp, and pacified the old Sheik and his wife, who 
were perfectly frantic with fear ; in fine, how we called upon 
Yusef to tell us, in the name of the seven wonders, how he 
had fallen into this difficulty. 

" Spirit of Eblis !" he gasped, panting for breath, " what a 
horrible — a — a — what a — a very dreadful night-mare I've 
had ! By the beard of the Prophet ! — I — I — thought I was 
ch — choking ! It even seemed to me that I was al — almost 
st — strangled ; for I protest I c — c — couldn't get my breath ! 
I do believe — I — I — would have d — d — died, if your Excel- 
lencies hadn't w — w — aked me up !" 

In the course of a few minutes, when he had somewhat 
recovered, he gave us some further particulars in regard to 
his dream, which, was certainly of a very extraordinary char- 
acter. It appeared that as he lay upon his mattress thinking 
how he could best protect us from the Bedouins, the idea oc- 
curred to him that, being very cunning fellows, they would, 
in all probability, upon seeing a door-way open in the bush 
work, naturally suppose that he, Badra, the Destroyer of 
"Robbers, was lying there waiting for them ; that they would, 
therefore, endeavor to effect their entrance through that part 
where the Howadji lay. In order to meet them upon theii 
own ground, therefore, he had cautiously crept over into that 
corner, behind us, where he sat waiting for them ; that while 
he w T as thus watching over us, he fell into a doze, but imag- 
ined it was into the river Jordan; and feeling himself going 
down, he began to swim ; that the moment he moved his 

R 



386 



A CRUSADE m THE EAST. 



hand for that purpose, it was seized hold of by a large snap- 
ping-turtle, which held him fast, and was pulling him down 
under the water, when another turtle, still larger, seized him 
by the throat, and got on top of him, and doubtless would 
have strangled him had he not, as he supposed, awakened 
us by his groans. He felt very thankful to us for saving his 
life, and would take care in future not to eat so much supper, 
which he imagined was the cause of his sleeping so badly. 

Having thus satisfied us as to the cause of the whole alarm, 
and proved that the result of the adventure was a subject of 
congratulation to both parties, we all lit our chiboucks, and 
enjoyed pleasant conversation on the subject of strange dreams, 
till day-light warned us that it was time to get breakfast and 
depart for Jerusalem. 



CHAPTER L. 



CHRISTMAS NIGHT IN BETHLEHEM. 

On our return to Jerusalem, we devoted the few days in- 
tervening before the 25th of December to a more thorough 
exploration of the neighborhood. So familiar now to every 
reader of Oriental travels are the Tombs of the Judges, the 
Mount of Olives, the Grotto of Jeremiah, the Mount of Zion, 
and all the places famed in sacred and classical history, that 
it would be a difficult task to add any thing new to what has 
been written on these subjects. 

I had heard much in regard to the ruinous aspect of modern 
Jerusalem ; and, strange as it may appear, was rather disap- 
pointed in not finding it so dilapidated a city as I had sup- 
posed it to be. Indeed, it seemed to me in quite as good 
condition as most of the cities which I had. seen in Turkey 
and Syria. The first view on the approach by the Damascus 
road, is strangely beautiful and impressive. The white 
mosques, and minarets, and rounded domes, and the fine old 
gateways, are strikingly Oriental. The houses and bazaars 
in the upper and middle parts of the town, toward the Jaffa 
gate, are as good as any in Beirut, and not at all like what 
one might expect in Jerusalem. 

On Christmas afternoon, having made up our minds to 
spend the night in Bethlehem, we set out with a crowd of 
Frank pilgrims, and in due time arrived at the convent. 
This building is very large and of irregular form ; and is said 
by the monks to be built over the Grotto of the Manger. The 
most reliable authorities deny that there is any reasonable 
ground for the assumption. We found the whole village of 
Bethlehem filled to overflowing with pilgrims from all coun- 



3$8 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



tries ; and it was not without difficulty that we obtained a 
room in the convent, which was already overflowing with 
visitors. 

In that old convent I passed the most memorable Christmas 
of my life ; and I sincerely hope it was the last of the kind 
that I am destined ever to spend. To give the remotest idea 
of the ceremonies would be utterly impossible ; and if I 
thought that a single reasonable being in any civilized coun- 
try, no matter of what persuasion, could look upon them with 
other feelings than those of disapproval and humiliation, I 
would not even acknowledge that I was there. 

Long before midnight the crowd was dense and crushing. 
Hundreds of monks, bearing candles, were assembled around 
the main altar. There was a waxen image there ; a strange 
disgusting thing, with staring eyes of glass, tawny skin, and 
wrinkled neck ; its cheeks puffed out, and its mouth slightly 
open, as if it had been suffocated with thick incenses. A 
string of beads was coiled up on its breast. It was dressed in 
white, and glared strangely with silver spangles and tawdry 
lace. 

They laid it on its back on the altar ; and they talked to 
it, and chanted, and prostrated themselves in its presence ; 
and the wild glare of many lamps glistened upon their pale 
greasy faces and shaven heads ; and anon they turned to the 
pictures on the walls, of bleeding and mutilated saints, and 
bowed down again with closed eyes, and chanted their hea- 
thenish rites, and moaned for the wickedness of the unbe- 
lieving. 

In jostling crowds they put aside the staring and affrighted 
Arabs, and went from alcove to alcove in a scorching halo 
of light ; and hour after hour, as the incense and foul air 
rose thicker and thicker over the heads of the swaying mass, 
they fell prostrate before the ugly wax image, and chanted 
the glory of the new-born. 

On the floor, surging around the many feet, was a sea of 
human heads, bald and blue with recent shaving, and the 
grizzled beards of the old were frothy as the foam wrought 
bv a fierce tempest. 



CHRISTMAS NIGHT IN BETHLEHEM. 



389 



There was something intensely brutish and disgusting in 
the whole spectacle. I could not but think that it was rank 
blasphemy, this exhibition of pretended divinity in a miser- 
able wax image ; a thousand times more barbarous than the 
heathenish rites of savages. The great fat monks, in their 
coarse sackcloth, with their shaven heads and bare feet ; the 
sweat standing in big drops on their faces ; their eyes rolling 
wildly in their heads; their hoarse chants grating harshly 
upon the air ; the lustful expression with which they turned 
from the altar, and on their bended knees gazed into the 
faces of the women, presented a scene too sadly impressive 
ever to be forgotten. 

At the hour of twelve, they lifted with awful looks the 
tawdry babe from its resting-place on the altar, and held it 
up for the multitude to gaze upon ; and then they bore it off 
in clouds of incense, through long winding passages, and de- 
scended into the cave, and laid it down upon a rock ; and the 
wax candles cast a pale and ghastly light upon it, and as it 
lay there with its round glass eyes staring at them, they fell 
prostrate and worshiped it, and chanted, and moaned, and 
wept at the feet of the panting crowd. Again they rose, and 
with :h"ot, blood-shot eyes, scowled malignantly upon the her- 
etics that pressed down upon them to see the strange spec- 
tacle ; and in the thickness of the foul atmosphere, and the 
gloom of the dark, reeking cavern, they looked slimy and 
monstrous, and I thought it was the most sickening exhibition 
of brutish superstition that the eye of man could behold. 

Parched with thirst and dazzled with the unceasing glare 
of lights thrust in my eyes for hours before, humiliated by the 
degrading spectacle, and sick at heart, I struggled out from the 
crushing mass, and groped my way up the winding passages 
to our quarters in the convent. I lay down, my brain burn- 
ing with visions of monstrous and unholy rites, and strove to 
sleep ; but, hour after hour, I started up and wondered what 
strange, unearthly sounds fell upon my ears ; what fearful 
spectres were painted upon the air ; what weight of horroj 
lay like a night-mare upon my breast. Can it be, I thought, 
that — 



390 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



" Some tormenting dream. 

Affrights me with a hell of ugly devils ?" 

Or is it that men are driven mad by the terrors of death ; 
that they thus draw darkness out of the future and swallow 
it into their souls? Is it that all this is done in the name of 
that merciful Redeemer, whose words fall like balm upon the 
heart? 

And then, as the night waned, and the sounds fell fainter 
and fainter upon the air, a soothing calm stole over me, and 
closing my eyes, I wandered back in thought to a happy 
home across the waters, and saw around the peaceful fireside 
on a Christmas night, a circle of familiar faces, all gentle 
and smiling, all radiant with hope ; and kindly greetings 
passed ; and pleasant words were spoken, and the happy 
past was revived, and bright anticipations of the future 
beamed upon every face ; and I inwardly thanked G-od that 
so much of good was yet left upon earth, so much of bright 
promise in the future ; and in the soothing of those happy 
memories and the hopefulness of better things to come, I com- 
mitted myself to the keeping of Him who showeth the path 
of life , in whose presence is fullness of joy, at whose right 
hand are pleasures for evermore. 



CHAPTER LI. 



CROSSING THE RIVERS. 

The heavy rains during our stay in Jerusalem had swollen 
the rivers, so that on our journey from Jaffa along the coast 
we were frequently stopped, and compelled to make a detour 
of several miles in order to find a crossing-place. Even then, 
owing to flats and marshes, we were subject to danger and 
inconvenience, and sometimes reduced to the necessity of dis- 
mounting, and hiring some of the neighboring Arabs who 
were acquainted with the fords to drive our horses before us 
and carry ourselves across on their backs. The mules usually 
contrived, about midway in these difficult passages, to get 

fast in the mud, and upset 
themselves and the bag- 
gage : which always oc- 
casioned the most intense 
excitement among the 
Arabs. To give any idea 
of the shouting, and shriek- 
ing, and flourishing of 
sticks ; the frantic lamen- 
tations on all sides : the 
thundering reproaches of 
Yusef ; or the remon- 
strances of the Howadji 
against the damage oi 
their precious curiosities, 
would be entirely out of 
the question. I shall 
content myself by leavin ; 




392 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



all that to the imagination of the reader, and presenting a 
sketch of what impressed me as the most picturesque feature 
in the scene. 

The position is striking, and not altogether ungraceful. It 
has the advantage of making one pair of legs answer- a double 
purpose — that of carrying the owner across the river, and at 
the same time the Howadji who is mounted upon the back 
of the owner ; and it presents the Howadji in rather a more 
elevated point of view than if the legs of both parties were 
in the water ; which, however, sometimes happens before 
they reach the opposite bank. Should the Arab who acts 
the part of carrier in these cases, accidentally step upon the 
point of a sharp stick, and suddenly let go his hold, the prob- 
ability is, that the hold of the gentleman upon his back will 
reduce both parties to a level, but not to an equality; because 
the more elevated naturally falls underneath, and he not only 
suffers from the disaster, but is obliged in the end to pay 
backshish for a back that failed to carry him over, and no 
deduction made for getting his own back saturated with mud 
and water. 

At one of these fords we met our old friend Maximilian, the 
celebrated Greek patriarch, who, in company with a high- 
priest of the same church, performed his pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem in a basket. Experience had taught him the danger 
of depending upon a mule when a river was to be crossed ; 
for, on one occasion, the mule upon which the two baskets 
were hung — that of Maximilian on one side, and that of the 
high-priest on the other — took it into his head to lie down, 
which he did in spite of all the Arabs, and it was with diffi- 
culty that the venerable pilgrims were rescued from a watery 
grave. Hence, the wily old patriarch, being too infirm to 
stand much moving, hit upon the expedient of having him- 
self carried across all future rivers in the following manner : 

He caused a stout Arab to get under the basket when they 
arrived at a river ; and at a given signal the ropes being un- 
fastened from the mule, and placed in the hands of the car- 
rier, so as to form a secure way of balancing the load, the 
basket and the patriarch were borne off at the same time, 



CROSSING THE RIVERS. 



393 



and safely landed on the op- 
posite side, unless in case of 
accident. If any accident 
occurred we heard nothing 
of it. My impression is that 
Maximilian reached Jerusa- 
lem in safety. 

Any person unacquainted 
with these circumstances, 
would, perhaps, at the first 
glance, imagine that the 




sketch is designed to repre- 
sent a peculiar race of men 



never before heard of ; with long beards, basket bodies, and 
an unusual number of arms and legs, and the knees of the two 
principal legs turned backward, so that these singularly-con- 
structed people may see what is going on behind them while 
they walk. There are many curious races of men in the 
world, according to the narratives of enterprising travelers ; 
but I will not undertake to say that such a race as this is to 
be found in Palestine. Although fully impressed with that 
belief when I saw the Greek patriarch mounted in his basket, 
upon the back of an Arab, I now give this explanation to 
caution the general reader, as well as all physiologists and 
scientific men, to be careful how they fall into the same error. 




CHAPTER LIL 



THE DESOLATE CITY. 



This was a dreary day ; from the rising of the sun nothing 
in sight but a waste of waters on the left, a desert plain on 
the right, and the blanched and rugged heights of C arm el dim 
in the distance. Our road lay along the coast of PhcBnicia, 
over barren rocks and beds of sand, all parched and shadow- 
less. 

Evening came, and thick clouds covered the sky ; the sun 
was hid in the gloom ; there was neither heat nor cold, nor 
glare nor darkness ; but a dim, death-like pall was outspread 
Upon the earth. No bird of the air or beast of the field wa 
in sight ; no sound broke upon the stillness but the sad moan- 
ing of the surf; no sign of life, or hope, or promise was within 
the last sweep of desolation around. 

We rode silently on our way ; and about the seventh hour 
of our journey from El Mukhalid, we beheld afar upon the 




shore a ruined city. 
Fragments of walls 
and towers rent asun- 
der, and masses of 




jg=== ramparts, shattered by 




iarkly through the 




jfj|haze. The Arabs 
ji stopped, and, point- 



ing to the ruins, said 
that there lay all that 
was left of Cesarea. 



VILLAGE OF EL MUKHALID. 



THE DE SQL ATE CITY*. 



We rode on, and drawing- near saw that ghostly city was 
walled around with ramparts, and masses of ruin were scat- 
tered round about over the plain. A few sickly weeds grew 
among the banks of broken columns and shattered walls ; 
but there was neither shrub nor leaflet nor green sod there ; 
all was withered and lifeless. 

I stopped awhile to sketch the ruins, while my comrades 
passed through and went their way toward Tantura. When 
I had finished, I entered through a crumbling archway, and 
wandered about, lost in wonder at the utter desolation of the 
place. Not a living soul was there ; not a living thing that 
I could see ; not a sigh, or whisper, or sound of life came from 
out of the ruins. The silence of death was every where ; not 
even the low wail of the surf now reached me through the 
masses of shattered walls ; and I thought how terrible was 
the wrath that had thus smitten the abodes of men with 
destruction; how "the Lord maketh the earth empty, and 
maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth 
abroad the inhabitants thereof." 

There was nothing but ruin every where ; high walls rent 
in gaping fissures ; towers shivered asunder to their bases ; 
great archways cast down in rugged masses ; streets choked 
and filled with shattered columns or covered over with blasted 
earth, all waste and sodless. Not a bird of good or evil omen 
sat upon the fragments ; not a beast haunted the ruins ; it 
was all still, all silent and without life. 

Ruined cities there are, scattered broadcast throughout this 
land of desolation ; yet all that I had seen had some remnant 
of vitality within their walls. Dark and squalid men and 
masked women haunted them ; dogs and wild beasts of prey 
and birds of evil omen fed upon the dead things that were cast 
out from the doors ; but here there was nothing of the present ; 
all was silent, all dead. ~No foul odors from dark and narrow 
streets ; no bearded men with downcast faces, stalking sadly 
through the fallen city ; no dark-eyed women to steal a flashing 
look at the stranger ; no human voice to utter a word of welcome, 
or say, Depart in peace ; no moody follower of the Prophet to 
scowl his hatred, or stalk unheeding by ; all was of the past. 



396 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



I sat upon a broken column, and looking with a saddened 
heart upon this scene of desolation, wondered what had be- 
come of all that had lived here ; the good, the wicked — the 
brave, the beautiful, and the gay ; how lived they ; how died 
they ; were all the records of their deeds for centuries past 
buried with them, and nothing left ; was there happiness 
within these walls ; did they feel as we who looked upon 
these ruins felt ; did they look back over the past and for- 
ward to the future, and in their ambition encircle the wide 
world, and turn to dust at last to feed the worms of the earth 
and nourish the weeds ; and was this mass of ruins all they 
had left to mark the spot ? 

There was not a breath to answer ; not a leaf to whisper 
of the past ; all gone, never to be seen upon earth again : 
not a soul but myself was there — a stranger from a distant 
land the only inhabitant now. 

In the grave-yard there is only the gloom of death ; silence 
is all we look for there ; but here, in the abiding-place of men, 
where once there was the din of life, there was the silence of 
death and more than its gloom ; for these walls were built for 
the living. I had wandered through ruins in another clime, 
where two thousand years ago a city was buried, and all were 
buried within it in the midst of life ; yet I saw their homes 
unchanged ; the frescoes upon the walls ; the marks idly 
made by the soldiers ; the bedrooms, the wine-cellars, the 
signs upon the doors, the tracks of the carriage- wheels in the 
streets, as they were buried two thousand years ago ; so fresh, 
so life-like, that one would scarcely be startled to see the dead 
arise and resume their avocations. But here nothing but the 
bare and ruined walls was left to tell of the past ; there was 
no connecting link to unite it with the present ; nothing within 
the shattered gateways, or abroad over the desert around, but 
fragmen+s of columns and massive stones — a waste of ruins ; 
all dreary and voiceless — all wrapt in desolation. 

The silence of a ship upon the sea at night, when all are 
buried in sleep, and the waters have ceased their dirge, is 
without gloom ; for the stars in the heavens are worlds where 
thought may wander ; where the soul may drink in the beau- 



THE DESOLATE CITY. 397 

ties of the firmament ; and if the darkness he upon the deep, 
then its mysteries are eloquent ; in its unfathomable caves lie 
wonders that can never cease to inspire glowing thoughts of 
the greatness of the Omnipotent. 

Not such is the Desolate City ; the city of the silent dead. 
Here is nothing to tell of them that dwelt there. The land is 
laid waste, and the earth mourneth and fadeth away. £i The 
Lord hath done that which he had devised ; he hath fulfilled 
his word that he had commanded in the days of old : he hath 
thrown down and hath not pitied. :: 

Such is Kaisariyeh — once a proud city of the Phoenicians ; 
now all that remains of Cesarea Palestina. 




KAISARIYEH. 



CHAPTER LIII. 



A SERIOUS CHARGE, 

At Tantura an incident occurred which any gentleman of 
respectable standing in society might well be excused for pass- 
ing over in silence. I do not believe a similar case is to be 
found in all the records of Syrian travel, though, doubtless, 
many a traveler has had personal experience of the same 
kind. It was an unpleasant charge, to say the least of it ; 
a provoking and unmerited charge ; one that touches the very 
soul of an honorable man in the tenderest part. Fain would 
I proceed on the journey, and leave Tantura to future trav- 
elers ; but a desire to maintain that spirit of candor and 
truthfulness by which it has been my constant endeavor to 
distinguish this narrative from all others, induces me to give 
a full exposition of the facts. 

Tantura is a small village by the sea-side ; the houses are 
also small and very dirty, like all the houses in Palestine. 
Such a thing as a hotel is not known in Tantura, or even a 
common tavern, or the remotest approach to any thing like 
it. There ought to be a Khan there ; the traveling public 
require it, and would patronize such an establishment, but 
Tantura is Khanless ; there is not even a can of milk to be 
had for love or money. The only place we could find to stop 
at was a small hut, situated in a pond of green and stagnant 
water. There was room for improvement all about the house, 
but not much room inside ; at all events, not any to spare, 
considering that the occupants for the single apartment of 
which it consisted were already two mules, four goats, sev- 
eral dozen of chickens, and the owner and his wife. Add to 
this our party of Howadji, servants and muleteers, and there 



A SERIOUS CHARGE. 



399 



is little left to subtract except the vermin, which might be 
continually subtracted for many years, and yet leave a re- 
mainder. The old Arab, who claimed to be proprietor, was 
a cadaverous and unwholesome-looking person, broken down 
m spirits, and evidently laboring under a complication of 
domestic miseries. His wife was a leather-faced, sharp-feat- 
ured, shrewish sort of body, who seemed to be continually 
spurring and goading the old man on to make himself useful, 
never ceasing for five minutes to keep him at work, and al- 
ways extremely enraged when he sat down to smoke. I had 
strong reason for believing that she had bought him with 
money, and was taking the worth of it out in petty install- 
ments ; or, it might be, that she really thought the affairs of 
the house required constant and laborious attention, or they 
might in the course of time become deranged. 

After our evening repast was over, being rather tired, we 
spread our mattresses and lay down, as we supposed, for the 
night. But it was not for the night, nor for more than a very 
small part of it ; because, as I said before, the house itself 
was unpromising, the landlord was unpromising, his wife was 
unpromising, and the whole establishment gave no promise 
whatever except that of vermin, which was faithfully ful- 
filled. We had a great abundance, and were not at all dis- 
appointed. I was so little disappointed myself that long after 
my companions fell asleep, which they did at last, I rolled 
about in extreme bodily anguish, wishing that some of the 
genii said to exist in those countries would transfer me to the 
meanest stable-loft at home. There was a dim wick burning 
in a small earthen lamp, in one corner of the house, by which 
I was enabled to look about and see if there was any possi- 
bility of bettering my condition. Rubbish and dirt abounded 
in every direction, so that it was some time before I could 
make out what there was in the opposite corner — rather a 
darkish sort of place, with some mud cupboards or shelves, 
not very clearly defined. The thought struck me that there 
might be some cavity or elevated hole there in which I could 
stow myself away above ground. It was a very happy 
thought, and a very bright thought under the circumstances. 



400 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



but not a lucky one, take it altogether. Wishing to disturb 
nobody, I crept cautiously over two or three snoring Arabs, 
and reached the corner without waking a living soul, so far 
as I knew. It was a capital place ; indeed, I may say such 
a snug sort of spot for a quiet nap as would have enchanted 
any man of imagination. In the corner, and extending along 
the wall to the length of six or seven feet, was a kind of mud 
cupboard, with two or three large cavities or shelves in it, a 
good deal like the place for dead bodies in the catacombs of 
Rome. But it was not the holes that I was so pleased with; 
they were all filled with old earthen vessels, kettles, pans, and 
other loose rubbish ; it was the space which I supposed to be 
on top that charmed me. The mud-work was very frail, and 
shook a good deal when I began to climb up, but by groping 
my way cautiously, and balancing the whole structure when- 
ever it began to give way, I got on top at last, about ten feet 
from the ground, and was greatly rejoiced to find that it was 
a most admirable place for a night's rest. All it wanted was 
to be cleared up a little, the surface being covered with onions 
to the depth of two or three inches. I had thrown my coat 
up before me, which I often used as a pillow, and, having no- 
where else to put the onions, began forthwith to gather them 
up in a pile at one end, and stow them under the coat, so as 
to make a comfortable resting-place for the head. This I was 
doing a^ quietly as possible, from a desire not to disturb my 
friends who were asleep down below. While I was raking up 
the last of the onions, and carefully balancing myself lest the 
cupboard should fall over and kill somebody, I distinctly heard 
a voice in the opposite corner of the house ; a woman's voice, 
low but sharp enough to be the voice of the old man's wife, 
which it unquestionably was. Then there was a guttural 
response ; then the woman's voice again, a little louder and 
a good deal sharper ; another guttural response ; a thumping 
sound, followed by a groan, and then out of the darkness crept 
the old man, looking up at me as he approached with an ex- 
pression of countenance in which terror, anxiety, and astonish- 
ment predominated. He kept staring at me for some moments 
to my great surprise, mumbling over something to himself w 



A SERIOUS CHARGE. 



401 



Arabic, uf which I understood not a single word except How- 
adji. "Well," said I, leaning over the top of the cupboard, 
" what do you want with the Howadji, old gentleman ? Can't 
you let me make a bed here ?" To this he responded as be- 
fore, only with more spirit, having apparently taken courage 
at the gentle manner in which I addressed him. Unable to 
understand him, T resumed the gathering up of the onions. 
The female voice in the corner again reached my ears, and 
the old Arab became quite violent. " My friend," said I, 
rather annoyed, " you are wasting breath. Really I can't 
understand a word you say. Ho, Yusef ! wake up. Ask this 
old gentleman what he wants." Yusef woke up and rubbed 
his eyes. " What's the matter, General ? Where is your 
Excellency ?" " Here," said I, " up here on top of the cata- 
combs in the comer." " Bless my soul ! And this old fool, 
what does he want ?" " In faith, Yusef, I don't know. He's 
been growling at me like a bear for ten minutes." Yusef 
turned fiercely upon the old Arab, and addressed him in tones 
of thunder. What the answer was I don't know ; it certainly 
was not of a satisfactory nature, for I never before saw Yusef 
so enraged and indignant. He drew his sword, and would 
doubtless have put the poor man to death on the spot had not 
the voice of the woman broken in at this juncture, which 
caused him to return it to the scabbard in some trepidation, 
and cover himself up as quickly as possible in his blanket ; 
upon which the old Arab made the best of his way back to 
the dark corner where his wife was. Yusef now raised up his 
head again, looked cautiously around him, and indignantly 
uttered these words : "By Allah ! this is too bad ! Gen- 
eral ! General, my blood boils ; for heaven's sake, let me kill 
somebody ; quick, let me kill somebody ; I can't stand it, I 
must — '* " Stop, Yusef! There must be no bloodshed here ! 
What did the man say to you?" " Say ? wherefore do 
you ask me ? How can I repeat it ? I'm ashamed of my 
country. In six months, General, you shall see Yusef 
Badra in America." " Nay, but I command you to tell me. 
Out with it, if you choke in the effort. What did he say V' 
" He said, General ' he said you were stealing his onions! 



402 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



he declared by the holy beard of the Prophet that he saw you 
at it himself; that with his own eyes he beheld you gather 
them up and put them in a bag." " Good heavens, Yusef !" 
" Yea, he called upon his wife to save him from my just 
wrath ; and what do you think she said, General ? Can 
you guess what she said ?" " No, indeed, Yusef; I am per- 
fectly confounded." " She said she missed some of them 
about a week ago, and had no doubt now that you were the 
same fellow that stole them, as nobody else knew where they 
were. Likewise she said, General, that if I molested her 
husband she would proceed at once to tear the eyes out of my 
head, and then enter a complaint against me before the Turk- 
ish authorities at Acre, and, at the same time, have your ex- 
cellency bastinadoed for theft." 

It W' as enough ; I got down from the top of the cupboard : 
mildly reproved my companions for making a laughing mat- 
ter of so serious a charge ; requested Yusef to light my chibouck 
and say no more ; calmly seated myself on a spare mat. 
and gave free indulgence, to melancholy reflection. Oh des- 
tiny ! had it come to this ? — to this at last ! That I, who 
had spent four precious years of my life in the Treasury De- 
partment of the United States ; whose chief study was thg 
study of the banking system ; whose most earnest hope was, 
never, by any visitation of Providence, to be Secretary of the 
Treasury, president of a bank, or signer of a circulating note ; 
that I, whose only ambition was to be thought an honest 
man as well as to be one in reality ; that I, who had chased 
the mighty leviathan of the deep, slept in the veritable castle 
of the renowned Crusoe, dug the glittering ore out of the gold 
mines of California, explored the remotest corners of the earth 
for the benefit of mankind, ; that I, who had smiled at the 
Gtueen of Greece, and frowned at Otho, King of Greece ; who 
had entered upon the grandest Crusade against the Mists of 
Fancy that ever was conceived by the soul of Chivalry, 
should at last be accused of stealing onions ! Enough I 
enough ! I turned over, put my pipe away, and went fast 
asleep ; for I was callous to fleas now ; they might bite me 
by millions ; rats and mice might gnaw at my vitals, but 



A SERIOUS CHARGE, 



403 



I was totally resigned to all earthly afflictions that could be 
piled upon me ; and the consequence was, I slept soundly till 
morning. 




RUINS NEAR TANTURA. 



CHAPTER LIV. 



AN EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. 

Doctor Mendoza and the Madam occupied the house 
next door. I was going to say they slept there ; but they 
slept nowhere at all on the present occasion. They were 
wide awake all night ; there was no sleep in Tantura for per- 
sons of fastidious taste on the subject of hotels : the contrast 
indeed was rather striking between the accommodations of 
Tantura and St. Petersburg. Perhaps there never was a 
more wretched house made by human hands than that oc- 
cupied by Doctor Mendoza and the Madam — except ours, and 
I defy the whole world to produce such lodgings as we had. 

In the morning at break of day, I went out to shake off 
some of the acquaintances of the night ; the Doctor and the 
Madam were sitting upon a pile of baggage in front of their 
hotel, groaning in a most disconsolate manner. We were 
always strictly Parisian in our politeness — no matter under 
what circumstances we met— especially the Madam, who had 
been educated in the true French school. It would have 
done any man of feeling good to see her when she rose from 
the baggage and returned my salutation ; it was the most 
striking exhibition of politeness under difficulties that I ever 
beheld, Her skin was perfectly green, spotted over with red 
bites ; her nose swollen to an unusual size by repeated 
attacks made by noxious reptiles ; her hair disheveled and 
uncombed, and her dress and general exterior, covered with 
dirty straw and mud. Yet she bowed as gracefully and 
smiled as pleasantly, as ever bowed and smiled a lady in the 
dress circles of a Parisian Opera-house. It was really charm* 
ing to behold such unruffled politeness. u Oh, Monsieur Gen< 



A.N EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. 



405 



eral ! Monsieur General ! was all she could say — " Q,uel jolie 
ville, Tantura ! duel hotel Parisien ! Oh, Mon Dieu !' and 
throwing up her hands, she sank down again upon the bag- 
gage in the most graceful manner. I verily believe if it 
were the fate of the Madam to be seized by a Royal Bengal 
tiger she would melt him by her politeness, or die gracefully 
in his teeth. 

Doctor Mendoza's skin was greener than ever ; that is to 
say, the green predominated, but there were yellow spots, and 
red and black spots all over his face, which gave some 
variety of color to his features. There was but little variety 
in the expression, however, for it was that of unmitigated dis- 
gust for Tantura and its accommodations. The corners of 
his mouth almost tied themselves in a knot under his chin, 
and his under lip formed a perfect representation of a piece 
of beef-steak thoroughly saturated with water. 

" Good-morning, Doctor," said I ; " how did you pass the 
night?" 

" No pass de night !" replied the Doctor gloomily, " 'tis im- 
poss to sleep. Very bad place dis. Hotel are not good in 
Tantura. Very bad hotel. De Madam is indispose. He 
shall have pleasure to arrive at Beirut. Very good hotel in 
Beirut. I no like dis country. Tis inter ess for the ruin, but 
I no like the ruin for sleep in, cos 'tis imposs to sleep. Very 
much pulce for bite. JNTo get much to eat here ; no much 
flesh on the Arab for manger. 'Tis necess for eat de traveler. 
I shall be tres contents to leave Tantura — 'Tis imposs to re- 
main here." 

I really felt very sorry for the Doctor; he looked so green 
and dejected, so utterly incapable of enjoying misery, bo 
wrapt up in that single idea of a comfortable hotel, that I 
declare upon my honor had it been in my power I would have 
built a hotel on the spot, arid given him the very best room 
in it. There was no help for him, however ; and expressing 
my sympathy for his unhappy condition, I returned into the 
hut to dispatch a hasty cup of coffee before starting upon our 
journey. 

Yusef had prepared a good breakfast of stewed chicken and 



406 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



rice ; but having no appetite, I contented myself with the 
coffee and a small piece of bread ; after which I called for a 
ehibouck, and endeavored to soothe my nervous system by a 
comfortable smoke. The conversation turned incidentally 
upon the affair of the onions. I was averse to any allusion to 
so humiliating an episode in our tour, and made several at- 
tempts to change the subject. It was no easy matter, as may 
be supposed, to silence our dragoman when any thing unusual 
was weighing upon his mind ; he had to give vent to his in- 
dignation in some way, and the most natural was by talking. 

Although he spoke in English which it was not likely the 
old Arab woman understood, he had hitherto kept a guarded 
watch upon his tongue ; but now finding she had disappear- 
ed, he broke forth in his usual strain of violence. He de- 
nounced the whole female sex as the root of all evil ; he pro- 
tested that he would sooner be tied to the tail of a wild horse 
than to any female that ever breathed ; he swore that the 
insult offered by that old hag to his beloved friend and mas- 
ter, would rankle in his breast until he had slain every male 
member in the family. I was greatly moved at this avowal 
of sympathy and devotion, and did my best to soothe the 
excited feelings of Yusef, by telling him that the greatest of 
mankind were subject to the caprices of fate ; that charges 
alike humiliating had been preferred against high officers of 
state and other great men, who required far more to be dis- 
tinguished for integrity than myself ; that in the present case 
this was an ignorant old woman, who was more to be pitied 
for her ignorance than blamed for the injustice she had done 
me ; that it was very true many evils in this life could be 
traced to the gentler sex, yet we could not well do without 
this source of trouble, for were we alone in the world we 
would find ourselves much more miserable, and in all proba- 
bility would pine away for want of something to make us 
only as unhappy as we were before, and in the end become 
totally extinct. To this Yusef replied that he felt the full 
force of my remarks, and would even go as far as to admit 
that perhaps this was one of the necessary evils of life ; but 
what he most insisted upon was, that there was no other evil 



AN EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. 



407 



that did not spring from the female sex ; in illustration of 
which he related the well-known case of the Persian Shah, 
who had repeatedly demonstrated the truth of the axiom. I 
had read about this case somewhere, and it was already 
known to me, but inasmuch as the reader may not be famil- 
iar with it, I may as well add that this renowned Shah was 
in the habit of asking, whenever any disaster occurred — Who 
was she ? meaning thereby, who was the female that caused 
it. On one occasion a poor stone-mason fell from the top of 
a house and broke his leg. The Shah demanded the name of 
the woman. His attendants said it was not a woman, but a 
poor stone-mason. " Who was she ?" repeated the Shah. " Go 
find out what woman caused this accident." The attendants 
did so ; they inquired of the poor mason, and ascertained that 
while he was at work on the top of the house, he saw a beau- 
tiful woman in the street, and in leaning over to see her 
the better, he lost his balance and fell to the ground. Such 
was the cause of the accident ; " And" said Yusef, alluding 
perhaps remotely to a certain feat of horsemanship, and a 
certain bad dream concerning a lion, in the earlier part of 
the journey, " such is the cause of all the disasters that have 



Here the conversation was cut short by the most dreadful 
series of noises that I had heard during the whole journey. 
My first impression was that we were besieged by a party of 
mounted Bedouins ; for the yelling of horses and the shrieking 
and screaming of Arabs were perfectly deafening. I looked 
appealingly to Yusef. He was our only hope of salvation in the 
terrible emergency of the moment. At first he turned pale, 
evidently with joy at the prospect of a fight ; then hearing 
the noises more distinctly, he sprang to his feet, seized his 
sword and rushed out, foaming with rage. The tall South- 
erner and myself, loth to see him sacrificed in our defense, 
without striking a blow in our own behalf, followed him with 
what weapons we could snatch up in the hurry of the occa- 
sion. Upon reaching the open space in front of the hut, we 
beheld a sight chat might well astonish and confound the 
most experienced of travelers. 



438 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



Several of the horses belonging to Dr. Mendoza's party, and 
our own three, were twisted up in a convulsed group, in all 
the fury of mortal combat ! Syed Sulemin was standing on 
his hind-legs in the very midst of the contending parties, 
striking out frantically with his fore-legs in every direction, 
The iron-gray, with his head outside of the circle, was kick- 
ing behind him to the extreme extent of his power ; and Sal- 
adin — alas, that I should be called upon to narrate so dis- 
graceful a proceeding on the part of a descendant of the re- 
nowned Ashrik ! Saladin, regardless of that high fraternal 
spirit which should prevail even among horses against a com- 
mon enemy, was biting Syed Sulemin ! actually tearing and 
torturing with his teeth the very flesh out of the rear of a 
fellow-warrior ! Well might the noble Sulemin keenly feel 
this unkindest cut of all — the common enemy bearing down 
upon him on the right and on the left and in front ; and a 
sharp fire in the rear from one who should have given him 
all needful aid and comfort. 

All the Arabs belonging to both parties were running 
around with cudgels in their hands beating the horses, and 
striving by that means, and by the most terrific shouts, to 
separate them. Emanuel Balthos, the dragoman of the Portu- 
guese party, was also running about ; but he was judiciously 
beating the Arabs for suffering the horses to fight, and not 
the horses for fighting. Yusef upon seeing that some of his 
own Arabs received the chief portion of the punishment, rush- 
ed into the battle and cudgeled the Arabs of Emanuel Balthos. 
Doctor Mendoza, apprehensive that the fight was becoming 
general, danced all about, tearing his hair, and calling upon 
Yusef and Emanuel and the Arabs and the horses — all to 
stop fighting for God's sake, or it would frighten the Madam 
out of "his wits." He shouted in Portuguese, in French, in 
Italian, in English ; he protested that the " Madam was in- 
dispose ;" that it was " necess to remain tranquil," but all 
in vain — there was no stopping the fight ; and in the ex- 
tremity of his despair, he wrung his hands, and groaned — 
" 'Tis imposs ! 'tis imposs !" The Madam shrieked wildly, in 
her anxiety for the safety of the Doctor ; she shrieked alter 



AN EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. 



409 



nately, " Mon Dieu! M071 Dieu!" and " Docteur ! Doc- 
teurf" and* strove several times to faint upon the pile of 
baggage, but was unable to do so on account of the interest 
she felt in the progress of the contest. 

Eventually the whole affair was brought to a conclusion 
in a very singular manner. Tokina, the ass, having receiv- 
ed a kick from one of the horses, doubtless, for casting ridi- 
cule upon the battle by incessantly braying, ran to the mules 
for satisfaction : they being tied fast to a shed, were rather 
more contracted in their sphere of action. The sudden and 
violent attack which he made upon this party, caused them 
to show their resentment with one accord ; and so unanimous 
was the strain upon the shed, that it fell to the ground with 
a tremendous crash, filling the air with dust and fragments, 
and totally confounding every animal and every spectator on 
the entire premises. The strife was at an end. The horses 
were led away panting ; the mules were unfastened from the 
wreck of matter ; and Tokina, the peace-maker, ran off as 
fast as he could toward Acre, braying hysterically at the ab- 
surd issue to which he had brought the whole affair, and the 
contempt which he had thereby cast upon every body con- 
cerned in it except himself. I could not but feel vexed and 
mortified at this insulting conduct on the part of Tokina : and 
I really thought when I caught the last glimpse of his ears 
in the distance that he was as great an ass as anybody. 

It is hardly necessary to add that upon a general review of 
the circumstances, it was ascertained that the whole difficulty 
orginated in a matter of jealousy between Syed Sulernin and 
my horse Saladin. 



CHAPTER LV. 



RISE, DECLINE, AND F^LL OF YTJSEF BADE A. 

Nations have had their good and evil fortune, and, accord- 
ing to all the evidences of history, the vicissitudes of prosperity 
and adversity which have attended them, have invariably re- 
sulted from in their own good or evil conduct. So we find it 
even more immediately apparent in the case of individuals. 
The fate of my renowned dragoman, friend, and leader, Yusef 
Badra, furnishes, perhaps, one of the most striking illustrations 
on record. 

I have endeavored to show in the course of this narrative 
that Yusef was, by nature and education, fierce and unrelent- 
ing in his prejudices ; that the two ruling prejudices of his life 
were, an innate hostility to the female sex, and an insatiable 
thirst for the blood of his fellow-creatures ; that to restrain him 
from the indulgence of these unfortunate propensities, was my 
constant endeavor throughout the entire journey. From the 
time of leaving Jerusalem, this task, partly of friendship and 
partly of self-preservation, became daily more arduous ; and so 
much trouble did it occasion me, that I often felt disposed to 
abandon him to his fate. All the nieces, whom he failed to 
meet on the road after leaving Damascus, he met in Jerusa- 
lem. Despising the whole sex, as he did, he nevertheless felt 
it to be his duty to call upon his relations, for the sake of his 
deceased uncle, whose memory he considered himself bound to 
honor. Now, these nieces, as well as all that he had previ- 
ously met in Baalbek and elsewhere, knowing his repugnance to 
the sex, always maliciously contrived to make him drunk with 
arrack, so as to humble him in the eyes of the world. It was 
entirely in vain that I represented to him the weakness of suf 



RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL OF YUSEF BAIfcRA. 41 1 



fering himself to *be caught by their snares ; he declared that 
they were as cunning as so many devils, and that a man might 
as well undertake to live without eating or drinking, as to 
avoid the snares of woman ; in short, as he had often said 
before, that the female sex was the root of all evil. 

Scarcely a town on the coast, as we drew near Beirut, was 
free from these temptations. At Acre, we slept in a very fine 
house, owned by the husband of Yusef 's most beautiful niece. 
This one he hated more than all the rest, because she was 
more malicious. She made him drunk so soon, that when he 
brought us in our supper, it was with difficulty he could stand 
upright ; and all the English he remembered was the burden 
of a song which I had taught him on the road, in the hope of 
overcoming his absurd prejudice against womankind. Even 
that he was puzzled to get exactly right. At first he had it : 

e< Oh, believe me, if all those endearing young arms, 
Which are twined round me fondly to-day, 
Were to change by to-morrow, and lose all their charms — ,; 

And then finding himself at a loss for what was to follow, he 
began again : 

" Oh, endear me, if all those believing young arms 
Were to twine round me fondly to-day, 
I'd change by to-morrow, and fleet in those charms — " 

But that was not right ; he thought he must have been right 
at 'first : 

" Oh, gaze on me fondly, if all those young charms, 
Which are twined round my arms to-day — " 

And so on, till I was forced in self-defense to request silence, 
and sing the song myself, which so inspired Yusef that he 
danced all around the room ; then made a fierce and sudden 
attack upon Francesco, the boy, whom he conquered in a mo- 
ment ; and finally declared he loved his glorious General, he 
loved the tail Southerner, and he loved Francesco, and he 
loved Syed Sulemin, and he loved Tokina the ass ; nay. by 
heavens ! he almost loved his niece ! In this happy frame of 
mind, he retired to remote and unknown parts of the house, 



412 > A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 

and we saw nothing of him again till moaning ; when, as 
usual of late, he looked morose and gloomy, and beat all the 
muleteers. Truly, saith Socrates, doth intemperance rob us 
of our reason, that chief excellence of man, and drive us to 
commit the very greatest disorders. 

Thus, it will be seen, commenced the decline of Yusef Ba- 
dra. His rise took place on the journey to Jerusalem. At 
Baalbek, he rose rather high. At Damascus he rose higher. 
At Jerusalem he rose highest. Now commenced his decline. 
That very day, on the journey to Tyre, as we were going 
through a narrow pass, we met a caravan of camels. Yusef, 
incensed at the driver of the first camel for not getting out of 
the way, came very near slaying both the man and the camel 
on the spot ; and would have done so, had not the man exhib- 
ited so much spirit and courage that it struck the warlike soul 
of Badra with admiration ; he not only pardoned the offense, 
but cordially shook hands with the offender and passed on. I 
saw with pain and anxiety that Yusef was daily giving way 
more and more to his fierce passions ; and that sooner or later, 
it must end in his utter ruin. On the occasion of this diffi- 
culty, therefore, I deemed it my duty to warn him of the re- 
sults that would probably ensue from this unlimited sway of 
courage. 

■ What," said I, " would have been the consequence had 
that man been a coward ? You would have slain him on the 
spot — run him through the body with your sword. I saw it 
in your ey<;, Yusef; don't deny it ; I saw that you meant to 
do it." 

"Doit?" cried Yusef, smiling proudly. "Fight a single 
man? a miserable camel-driver ? No, sir ; I merely intended 
to cut his head off with oue blow, so that he never would 
find out till he sneezed that it was off at all ; the camel 1 
should simply have ripped open." 

" That's precisely what I mean. The man was not a cow- 
ard, and, therefore, you admired him, and felt that he was a 
congenial soul. You spared his life; you shook hands with 
him ; you loved him as a brother. But had he been a cow- 
ard, as I before said, what would have been the consequence 'I 



RISE, DECLINE. AND FALL OF YUSEF BADRA 4& 



.A momentary pleasure to you. would have been death to him. 
For I certainly could not have arrested your arm, situated as 
we were in a narrow pass/' 

"It is even as your Excellency says/' replied Yusef, with 
deep contrition ; " such, indeed, was my intention. I freely 
confess it. But consider, beloved General, the circumstances, 
I may say the character and extent of the provocation. For 
nearly forty days have I restrained myself to gratify your Ex- 
cellency. Never before have I performed the journey through 
Syria without killing at least six men. This time what have 
1 killed ? My sword and fire-arms are fairly rusty for want of 
use. Not a single life have I taken up to the present date." 

"You are certainly mistaken in that. Yusef 1 saw you 
cut the heads off of more than a hundred chickens before we 
reached Jerusalem, and I have your own word for it that you 
killed a gazelle on the plains of Esdraelon. Besides that, you 
struck terror into the soul of every suspicious vagabond on the 
road ; and I'll venture to assert that many of them have since 
died from fright, which, the experience of medical men suffi- 
ciently demonstrates, has frequently produced that result. 
Now, I hold, that you might as well kill a man as frighten 
him to death." 

"Your Excellency is right," cried Yusef; "I did do some 
trifling service in that way, merely to keep my hand in. I 
likewise killed a couple of men in Jerusalem, as a matter of 
amusement. I had forgotten the circumstance. However, I 
shall never be able to show my face in Beirut, or sleep soundly 
on my arrival there, without killing at least one more ; and 
I ask it, as a special favor, that your Excellency will not deny 
me this pleasure." 

" Most emphatically I forbid it, Yusef. Furthermore, I 
take this occasion to declare that if you attack or molest in 
any way a single unoffending person between this and Beirut, 
I shall put you in a book. Not one of your daring and intrepid 
acts has escaped my notice. These frightful exhibitions of 
chivalry — these perils that you are continually rushing upon, 
endangering not only your own life but the lives of the whole 
party, shall be fully described and held up to the traveling com* 



414 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



mumty, to warn them of the evil effects of misguided courage. 
Yusef Badra shall become a name not only feared throughout 
Syria, hut a terror throughout the whole civilized world !" 

This threat, which I made with all the force and emphasis 
necessary to give it full effect, did not allay in any degree the 
fiery zeal of my dragoman. Scarcely had I concluded, when 
he seized my hand in the most enthusiastic manner, and said — 

<; By all the compromises of Earth, General, I would 
slay ten thousand men, and die ten thousand deaths to oblige 
your Excellency ! If you deem me worthy of figuring in this 
important history of which you speak, I only ask that you will 
call me by my proper name, and give me no fictitious title." 

" I'll do it, Yusef — I'll certainly do it ; so I warn you ; be 
on your guard." 

With that, to my great surprise, he gave vent to his fearful 
war-cry, Badra ! Badra for ever ! and before I could utter a 
word, dashed off at full speed. It was in vain that I shouted to 
him to stop ; there was no stopping him now ; and as I rode 
along, restraining by every possib]e means the fiery spirit oi 
Saladin, my mind was filled with the most gloomy forebodings 
I felt quite sure that something dreadful was going to happen 
Oh that insatiable thirst for fame ! How it 

" Heaps the plain with mountains of the dead, 

Nor ends with life, but nods in sable plumes, 
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs!" 

As we drew near Beirut, we stopped at every house on the 
road-side to inquire if Yusef had passed. The muleteers had 
gone on ; and the party now being reduced to the tall South- 
erner and myself, we were compelled to depend altogether 
upon signs for the information we sought — pronouncing in 
various different ways the name of our leader and the word 
dragoman, and then pointing up the road. The answers were 
invariably to the same effect, and being communicated in 
signs they were singularly dramatic. TTe judged, from the 
frantic manner in which these signs were made, that a furious 
horseman had passed, that he was armed with guns, pistols, 
and knives ; that he flourished his sword at every body in the 
most terrific manner ; that he smote the very air for breath- 



RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL OF YTJSEF BADRA. 415 



hag in his face, and vanished in a cloud of dust. The descrip- 
tion was not to be mistaken. No other horseman thanYusef 
could be meant. 

Within six miles of Beirut, we overtook a withered little 
man, hobbling along and talking strangely to himself: he 
stopped when he saw us, and running up began howling 
frantically at us in Arabic, and flourishing his hands in the 
air, and beating his sides by turns in the strangest manner, 
as if entirely bereft of his senses. Our first thought was that 
the poor fellow was drunk or crazy ; our next that he was a 
beggar, and wanted alms. We threw him a few piastres, 
which set him to howling louder than ever, nor did he stop 
his violent gesticulations to pick them up, but ran after us as 
we rode on, working himself into a perfect phrensy. That 
he was an unfortunate lunatic we were now thoroughly con- 
vinced ; he ran after us for as much as a mile, sometimes 
catching our horses by the tails and trying to stop them ; and 
when he found that we still continued on, he at length flung 
himself prostrate on the ground, rolled over and over, and 
liowled like a hyena. The whole thing was unaccountable 
and singular. Not the remotest idea of the cause occurred 
to either of us. Unable to do any thing for the poor fellow, 
we rode on as fast as we could to the nearest hut, which was 
in sight, and made signs to some Arabs there to go back and 
see what was the matter. To this the only reply we could get 
was a perfect torrent of Arabic, and the most threatening and 
indignant looks, mingled with the words — Beirut ! Beirut ! 

I declare, for rrfy own part, that I was completely struck 
aghast with mystery. Certainly it was the most singular oc- 
currence that had happened during the entire journey What 
could it mean ? Was the man mad ? Were all the Arabs 
nea.r Beirut bereft of their senses ? In truth, it seemed so ; 
and entirely unable to come to any other understanding in 
regard to the matter we pushed on rapidly ; and in about an 
hour more entered the suburbs of Beirut. 

It was a delightful evening. The civilized appearance of 
the town, after all the ruinous places we had seen, the fa- 
miliar masts of the shipping, the stir and activity every where, 

s* 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



had an indescribably pleasant effect. It seemed qnite like 
returning home, after a long absence. I thought, when we 
drew up in the neat front yard of Demetrie's Hotel, that it 
was the cleanest and most pleasant-looking place I had ever 
seen ; that the Arabs lounging about were all dandies of the 
first rank in the world of fashion ; that D erne trie was the 
finest-looking man. with his splendid mustache and Albanian 
costume, that could be found in the whole East ; and, in 
short, that every thing and every body looked wonderfully 
new and civilized. 

Yusef was not there. He had arrived ; had embraced his 
friend Demetrie. who admitted that he was a little under the 
influence of arrack ; and, as well as we could understand 
from the drift of Demetrie's hints, had gone off to see one of 
his nieces, to whom he had a letter from another niece in 
Jerusalem. 

It was not until after breakfast the next morning, that we 
enjoyed the pleasure of seeing Yusef. He was standing out 
in the front yard, dressed in the most gorgeous of Oriental 
costumes. His turban was of the richest texture and most 
flashing colors ; his vest actually glittered with gilded em- 
broidery and silver buttons ; his sash was of flaming vermil- 
ion ; his sword and atagar of Damascus, dazzled the eye as 
they swung by his side in the morning sun-beams : his legs 
were swathed in crimson velvet : and his feet seemed to spurn 
the earth in the glory of yellow embroidered slippers, the 
richest productions of Aleppo. I declare, without exaggera- 
tion, when I saw him thus encircled by an admiring crowd, 
rolling out torrents of rich Arabic, as he gracefully waved his 
hands in the air, showing with what ease he had encountered 
the Bedouins from Damascus to the Dead Sea, I thought he 
was the most graceful, warlike, and distinguished-looking man 
the world had ever produced. When I approached and said: 
" Good-morning, Yusef; how do you do ? : ' it was really flat- 
tering to my feelings, the mingled dignity and deference with 
which he bowed to me, and the Oriental richness of the fig- 
ures of speech which he made use of in returning the compli- 
ments of the morning. 



RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL OF YUSEF BADRA. 417 



" Brightest ornament of the glorious land of Liberty/' said 
he. "radiant and most effulgent miracle of Generals, most 
graceful, extraordinary, and accomplished horseman ; thou 
who fearest neither man nor beast ; thou who hast traversed 
the dangerous and devious windings of the desert mountains 
of Syria, like the flaming planet that was deemed worthy to 
be worshiped by the great Zoroaster ; — behold ! I, who have 
never bowed to Bedoum foe ; I, who would scorn to bend the 
knee by compulsion before the grand Sovereign of all the 
Turkeys ; I, Yusef Badra, kiss the hem of thy garment, and 
greet thee with the willing devotion of a heart steeped to the 
core in human blood ! — a heart that seldom throbs save hi a 
crimson sea of gore !" 

In this strain he talked for some time, greatly to the ad- 
miration of all the surrounding Arabs ; after which, we set 
out, under his guidance, to make some purchases in the ba- 
zaars. As we were strolling along leisurely through the 
streets of Beirut, I took advantage of the occasion to ask 
Yusef the reason of his mysterious disappearance on the road. 
He changed color a little at the abruptness of the question ; 
but quickly answered that it was merely for the purpose of 
killing a man. of whom he had heard strange accounts in 
Sidon. This man, it appeared, was of gigantic stature, seven 
feet high at least, and large in proportion ; every body on the 
road was afraid of him ; he had even threatened, in case he 
ever met Yusef Badra, to clip the ears from the head of that 
individual; which, taken altogether, so aroused -the soul of 
Badra, that he had determined upon putting this braggart to 
death. After his (Yusef's) conversation with his beloved 
General, being inspired thereby, and reminded of this giant, 
he set out full speed for the purpose of carrying his purpose 
into execution. He had not gone more than a few miles 
when he discovered the giant, concealed behind a rock, wait- 
ing for him. Maddened at the cowardice of this trick, he 
put spurs to Syed Sulemin, dashed straight up to the spot 
with drawn sword, and challenged the miserable wretch to 
stand forth and defend himself. The miserable wretch was 
even taller than he was represented to be — eight feet high at 



418 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



least. But, in despite of that, finding him unwilling to close 
in the fight, Yusef dismounted and beat him with the flat of 
his sword till the poor braggart cried out that he was killed, 
conquered, overwhelmed, and completely satisfied. "Doubt- 
less he is dead by this time," added Yusef, with great coolness, 
" it is impossible that he could have long survived the fright 
and the beating together." 

At this juncture, I was astonished to perceive that Yusef 
turned ghastly pale ; his knees knocked together, and he was 
transfixed to the ground like one who unexpectedly discovers 
a spectre. Following the direction of his starting eyes, I be- 
held two Turkish soldiers within a few steps, walking straight 
up to him. " Excuse me, gentlemen," said Yusef, turning 
to us, with a ghastly smile, "I — I — have a 1—1— little busi- 
ness to settle." At the same moment, the Turkish soldiers 
laid their hands upon his shoulders, uttered a few words in a 
low tone of voice, took him each by the arm, and walked ofl 
rapidly, leaving both my friend and myself perfectly amazed 
and confounded. 

Alas ! need I tell it ? this was the fall of Yusef Badra ! 
In two hours the whole town of Beirut was in commotion. 
It was cried aloud in G-reek, in Arabic, in Italian, in French, 
in English — Have you heard the news ? Yusef Badra's in 
jail ! Badra's in jail ! Badra ! Badra ! God help poor 
Badra ! Sad is the fate of Badra ! Poor Badra ! Unhappy 
Badra ! 

We returned toward Demetrie's. The pathway was lined 
with Arabs, friends, and fellow citizens of the fallen Badra. 
They cried aloud to us, as we passed, Howadji ! Howadji ! 
Badra ! Badra ! 

We entered the yard in front of Demetrie's. It was filled 
with muleteers who had served under Badra ; among whom 
we recognized our own Mustapha. They cried out to us, 
Howadji ! Howadji ! Badra ! Badra ! — Mustapha caught us 
frantically by the coat-tails, and wept aloud, while he pointed 
toward the jail, and cried, Badra ! Badra ! 

We met Demetrie in the saloon. His fine face was clouded 
with trouble. " Have you heard the news ?" said he, " Ba 



RISE, DECLINE. AND FALL OF YUSEF BADRA. 419 



dra's in jail ! Yusef Badra's in jail. 0, Howadji ! can't you 
get him out ! He's a good fellow ! He drinks ; but he's a 
good fellow ! Howadji ! Howadji ! Badra ! Badra !" 

We went straightway down to the office of the American 
consul. At the door we met Eleas. the servant of the En- 
glish captain, who was weeping bitterly. " Badra's in jail," 
ne cried, " poor Yusef Badra ! They put him in jail for 
nothing at all — they'll punish him for nothing at all — only 
beating a miserable Turk on the road ! 0, Howadji ! How- 
adji ! save him ! Save poor Yusef, your friend and drago- 
man !" 

It was even as Eleas told us. The withered little man, 
whom we had met on the road, was the victim of Yusef 's mis- 
guided courage ; and had laid his complaint before the Turk- 
ish authorities that morning. Yusef was accordingly seized, 
as already stated, and put in jail. 

The American consul, in compliance with our request, 
sent for Yusef; who was accompanied to the office by a 
guard of Turkish soldiers. There was much talk on all sides ; 
but the authorities were immovable. Nothing could be done. 
The case was an aggravated one, and must go before the 
Sultan. It was for the G-rand Seignor to decide what was to 
be done with a man so inspired with courage that he could, 
not pass a decrepit old Turk on the road without attempt- 
ing to kill him. The consul did all in his power ; we said 
and did all we could ; the friends of Yusef wept all they could. 
It was to no purpose ; the laws of the land must take their 
course. Poor Yusef! No more was he Yusef the Brave! 
Yusef the Destroyer of Robbers ! Throughout Beirut he was 
now, "Poor Yusef!" — nothing but "Poor Yusef!" 

We went to his prison. There he sat behind the bars, 
surrounded by thieves and vagrants, and stared at by the idle 
rabble outside, crushed down in body and soul. The big tears 
rolled down his cheeks. When he saw us he covered his face 
and groaned : " My niece did it, gentlemen ; she made me 
drunk. All my misfortunes have come from devils in the 
form of angels. Take warning, Howadji, and never put 
faith in woman !" We told him how sorry we were that we 



420 



A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 



could do nothing for him : that he was a very pitiable object 
to be sure, but he could only blame himself for it : that it 
would be greatly to his advantage in the end, perhaps, to 
spend some time in prison, inasmuch as it would enable him 
to refrain from visiting his nieces, and save him from the 
mortification of being made drunk on arrack ; that confine- 
ment has its pleasures as well as its pains ; and should he be 
kept in jail six months it would doubtless be a continual 
source of satisfaction to him to reflect upon the blood of the 
six Bedouins he had slain, and anticipate the pleasure of kill- 
ing six more as soon as he was set at liberty ; in short, that 
although he would present a most pitiful and heart-rending 
sight behind the bars, to all his pretty nieces who might 
chance to pass that way, and was a fit subject of commiser- 
ation for all the muleteers whom he had beaten on the road, 
yet that, considering the thing in its proper light, there w T as 
every reason to congratulate himself, inasmuch as he would 
be comfortably provided for in the way of bread and water, 
and not suffered to spend his money extravagantly, for it 
would all be taken care of, and properly appropriated to the 
use of the Turkish authorities, and that of the old man w T hom 
he had beaten on the road. 

Having thus afforded all the consolation in our power to 
the unfortunate Yusef. we bade him a kindly farewell, never 
more, perhaps, to see his familiar face again. The steamer 
for Alexandria, was already getting up steam. 

We returned to Demetrie's, with a crowd of Arabs after us, 
who still cried out to us, as if they thought the Howadji all- 
powerful, " save poor Yusef Badra ! Howadji ! Howadji ! 
take pity upon poor Yusef Badra ! the friend of our heart ! 
the joy and pride of Beirut !' ; 

As we sat down to our last dinner at the hoteH Doctor 
Mendoza and the Madam entered. They had arrived the 
day before us. They were delighted at the happy termina- 
tion of the voyage through Syria : Doctor Mendoza said that 
the Madam w r as a little indispose, in consequence of the horse- 
fight at Tantura, wdiich had disordered his (the Madam's) 
nerves ; but he would be well directly. 



RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL OF YUSEF BADHA. 421 

Doctor Mendoza had, with his customary kindness of heart, 
evinced the most profound concern for the fate of our drago- 
man from the moment he had heard of his arrest by the 
Turkish soldiers. He went to the Portuguese consul's that 
afternoon, before the steamer sailed, and stated the whole 
case in the hope of obtaining Yusef 's release. On his return 
he popped his head in at the door of our room, where we sat 
smoking our chiboucks, and lamenting the unhappy fate of 
the Destroyer of Robbers. With a clouded brow and despond- 
ing voice, he told us of the interview : 

" I have speak my consul for your dragoman. JNTo-ting 
can be done. She are necess to remain in jail, because she 
can not get out. ISTo more she shall voyage at present. "lis 
imposs. It will be necess for her to remain tranquil. Very 
bad hotel in jail, because it are without the convenience for 
eat and sleep. Consequent she shall die. Dis is all. No 
more at present she shall get out. I am very sorry, but — 
'tis imposs !" 




THE END OF YUSEF. 



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HAYDN'S DICTIONARY OF DATES, relating to all Ages and Nations. 
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tary and Keeper of the Librarv of the Royal Institution of Great Britain : 
and Revised for the'Use of American Readers. Svo, Cloth, $5 00 ; Sheep, 
$6 00. 

MACGREGOR'S ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. The Rob Roy on the 
Jordan, Nile, Red Sea, and Gennesareth, &c. A Canoe Cruise in Pales- 
tine and Egvpt, and the Waters of Damascus. By J. Macgeegoe, M.A. 
With Maps and' Illustrations. Crown Svo, Cloth, $2 50. 

WALLACE'S MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. The Malay Archipelago : the Land 
of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise. A ]S arrative of Travel. 1S54- 
1862. With Studies of Man and Nature. By Alfeed Ressel Wallace. 
With Ten Maps and Fiftv-one Elegant Illustrations. Crown Svo, Cloth, 
$3 50. 

WHYMPER'S ALASKA. Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, 
formerly Russian America— now Ceded to the United States— and in va- 
rious other parts of the North Pacific. By Feedeeick Whympee. With 
Map and Illustrations. Crown Svo, Cloth, $2 50. 

ORTON'S ANDES AND THE AMAZON. The Andes and the Amazon 
or, Across the Continent of South America. By James Orto>\ M.A., 
Professor of Natural History in Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. N. Y, and 
Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 
With a New Map of Equatorial America and numerous Illustrations. 
Crown Svo, Cloth, $2 00. 



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LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION. Pictorial Field-Book 
of the Kevolution ; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, 
Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence. 
By Benson J. Lossing. 2 yols., Syo, Cloth, $14 00 ; Sheep, $15 00 : Half 
Calf, $18 00 ; Full Turkey Morocco, $22 00. 

LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE WAR OF 1812. Pictorial Field-Book 
of the War of 1312 ; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, 
Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the Last War for American 
Independence. By Benson J. Lossing. With seyeral hundred Engrav- 
ings on Wood, by Lossing and Barritt. chiefly from Original Sketches by 
the Author. 10S3 pages, Svo, Cloth, $7 00 ; Sheep, $3 50 ; Half Calf, $10 00. 

WINCHELL'S SKETCHES OF CREATION. Sketches of Creation: a Pop. 
ular View of some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in reference 
to the History of Matter and of Life. Together with a Statement of the 
Intimations of Science respecting the Primordial Condition and the 
Ultimate Destiny of the Earth and the Solar System. By Alexander 
Winchell, LL.D\, Professor of Geology, Zoology, and Botany in the 
University of Michigan, and Director of the State Geological Survey. 
With Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

WHITE'S MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. The Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew : Preceded by a History of the Religious Wars in the Reign 
of Charles IX. By Heney White, M.A. With Illustrations. Svo, Cloth, 
$1 75. 

ALFORD'S GREEK TESTAMENT. The Greek Testament : with a critical- 
ly-revised Text ; a Digest of Various Readings ; Marginal References to 
Verbal and Idiomatic 'Usage : Prolegomena ; and a Critical and Exegeti- 
cal Commentary. For the Use of Theological Students and Ministers. 
By Heney Alfged, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Vol. I., containing the 
Four Gospels. 944 pages, Svo, Cloth, $6 00 ; Sheep, $6 50. 

ABBOTT'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The French 

Revolution of 1739. as viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions. By 
John S. C. Abbott. With 100 Engravings. Svo, Cloth, $5 00. 

ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The History of Napoleon Bona- 
parte. By John S. C. Abbott. With Maps, Woodcuts, and Portraits 
on Steel. 2 vols., Svo, Cloth, $10 00. 

ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA ; or, Interesting Anecdotes and 
Remarkable Conversations of the Emperor during the Five and a Half 
Tears of his Captivity. Collected from the Memorials of Las Casas, 
O'Meara, Montholon, Antommarchi, and others. By John S. C. Abbott. 
With Illustrations. Svo, Cloth, $5 00. 

ADDISON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Joseph Addison, em- 
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ALCOCK'S JAPAN. The Capital of the Tycoon : a Narrative of a Three 
Years' Residence in Japan. By Sir Rutheeeoed Alcock, K.C.B., Her 
Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan. 
With Maps and' Engravings. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50. 

ALISON'S HISTORY OF ETP 1 >E. Fiest Seeies : From the Commence- 
ment of the French Revo on, in 17S9, to the Restoration of the Bour- 
bons, in 1815. [In addition to the Notes on Chapter LXXVL, which cor- 
rect the errors of the original work concerning the L'nited States, a 
copious Analytical Index has been appended to this American edition.] 
Seconp Seeies : From the Fall of Napoleon, in 1315, to the Accession of 
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BANCROFT'S MISCELLANIES. Literary and Historical Miscellanies. 
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$6 00. 
































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